Episode 140 - Simulation Tool Chain for AVs Achieves SAE Level 3

The race is on to develop an autonomous vehicle (AV) that is safer than a human driver—and one automaker is coming closer.

By joining forces with Ansys, the global leader in engineering simulation, the BMW Group has developed the first-ever end-to-end tool chain specifically guided by safety principles to develop and validate ADAS and automated/autonomous driving functions.

Through this collaboration, the BMW Group is leveraging Ansys' unique simulation capabilities to become one of the first automotive manufacturers to offer SAE Level 3 highly automated driving to consumers. The collaboration is key to quickly addressing advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and AV system reliability and significantly speed time to market.

As shown in SAE J3016™, the transition from SAE Level 2 to Level 3 is significant. With state-of-the-art software solutions that are cloud-native, scalable, fit for massive data, open and extensible, the partnership between BMW and Ansys has resulted in an automated simulation tool chain that supports the mass generation of safety relevant scenarios and related analytics to validate AV system performance.

We sat down with Nicolas Orand, Senior R&D Director of Autonomous Product Line at Ansys, and Rene Grosspietsch, Business Development Autonomous Driving at BMW Group, to discuss their ground-breaking partnership, the critical role of simulation in achieving SAE Level 3 autonomy, and the path to fully autonomous driving.

Meet Our Guests

NICOLAS ORAND
Senior R&D Director of Autonomous Product Line, Ansys

Nicolas Orand is Senior R&D Director of Autonomous Product Line at Ansys, a leader in engineering simulation. He joined Ansys through the acquisition of Optis SAS where he managed the R&D teams in the development of optical simulation and virtual reality software, namely SPEOS and VRXPERIENCE. Nicolas’ experience in engineering software edition started 20 years ago with Imagine SAS, then LMS as Director of Product Management for Systems Engineering solutions with Amesim which he carried with Siemens PLM Software from 2013 to 2016.

DR.-ING RENE GROSSPIETSCH
Senior Manager Business Development and Cooperation Management for Autonomous Driving, BMW Group

During his career, Dr.-Ing Grosspietsch has gained extensive experience in the areas of strategy and innovation management, especially in the validation of driver assistance systems and market introduction of autonomous driving functions. Joining BWM China Services in 2012 as VP of Business Development R&D, he moved to the BMW Group in 2015 as the Head of Autonomous Driving Research. In 2016, he took on the role of Head of Autonomous Driving Cooperation and Customer Experience and began his current position as Business Development Autonomous Driving in 2018.

Transcript:

Grayson Brulte:

Hello, I'm your host, Grayson Brulte, and welcome to another episode of SAE Tomorrow Today, a show about emerging technology and trends in mobility with the leaders, innovation strategists who make it all happen. On today's episode, we're absolutely honored to be joined by Nicolas Orand from Ansys and Rene Grosspietsch from BMW Group. On today's episode, they'll discuss their partnership to develop the first ever end to end tool chain, specifically guided by safety. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Gentlemen, welcome to the podcast. Nice to be here. Hello, nice to be here. We're excited to have you here because what Ansys and BMW group are doing, you're developing the future and you're develop developing through collaboration. How long has Ansys and BMW Group been collaborating together?

Nicolas Orand:

So we started collaboration early part of 2019, and that collaboration actually increased starting in 2021 when the tool chain became utilized for the official product at BMW.

Grayson Brulte:

Rene, the partnership of the collaboration started in 2019. You accelerated it in 2021 with the first ever end to end tool chain, specifically guided by safety principles to develop and validate ADAS and the driving functions, was that developed because of the trust that you had with Ansys from that relationship? 

Rene Grosspietsch:

Yes, we believe, strongly believe in collaborations. It always needs a lot of work, like in every relationship between two parties. But we deeply believe in the synergies and the mutual benefits to benefit from competencies and from expertise from both parties and at that time we had different options in the market to work with. And Ansys was actually the partner who had strong domain expertise in the area of simulation. And it was also open and flexible to work with us on a completely new solution, which simply did not exist at that time. We had very good experiences with Ansys and decided to continue the collaboration.

Grayson Brulte:

Nicholas, Rene pointed to domain experience. How did Ansys originally develop that domain experience? 

Nicolas Orand:

ANSYS is is focused on simulation solutions obviously, but also into the autonomy space. We have we have capabilities in safety mapping and and analysis. We have capabilities in software developments and capabilities in sensor simulation. So this altogether brings a lot of knowledge that could be, obviously of great use. 

Grayson Brulte:

To me, it sounds that Ansys is taking a holistic approach to it. You're not looking at one segment, you're looking at multiple segments that will have an impact there. Nicholas, how would you describe what the end to end tool chain is in the function that the tool provides as raised to ADAS and autonomous driving function?

Nicolas Orand:

Yeah, the tool chain here, there are multiple work streams that needs to be executed in order to provide data results for the safety case. In the case of L three 80 stacks and here the tool chain is taking care of the simulation and re simulation part, and so it ensures that it covers the space that's defined by the operating design domain. And the confidence of the results. So that's what the tool chain does. And for this, it has several capabilities as managing the scenarios that can come from expertise or from CIF analysis. It analyzes the drive data, okay? To provide the parameters, variations, and ranges of the parameters. For the given scenarios, we're looking for the ability to vary scenario and simulate in the closed loop with the test plan and finally extract the results compute from confidence towards the safety case. 

Grayson Brulte:

Rene, Nicholas describes it's increased safety. Is that a fair assumption? 

Rene Grosspietsch:

Yes, of course. To trains that we, they're working on are supposed to deliver a higher safety for BMW group it's very important to deliver a product to the customer that is safe, that is, before it enters the road and not together with the customer. Yeah. And and as a settlement this requires according tools. And what Nicolas was also raising is is a dimension of safety. What you call it sort of. You might oR to make sure that the system does what is what it's supposed to do, for instance, to execute a breaking decision breaking maneuver. But when it comes to sof, we more talk about performance insufficiencies. Yeah. Which is more a statistical problem. Which you have to run different and the multiple tests in different scenarios to test and to check whether the system behaves in the way in the end, huh? Better than the human driver. And this is a And when it comes to automated driving, a very important topic that we are looking at. 

Grayson Brulte:

It's a very important topic. BMW's been known for years as the ultimate driving machine. There's a very big brand there that means a lot and safety plays a very critical role in the BMW brand. Rene, what are the safety principles at the organizations are following to enable? 

Rene Grosspietsch:

Generally safe safety comes first for BMW. Yeah, so as said we do extensive testing to make sure the customer gets a product in its end that is safe from a system perspective, but also that we take it very seriously and look at it in a responsible way, how the customer works with the product. So we know it from from test drives that customers pretty well adopt to automatic driving. We have seen people sitting in the car being concerned in the first moments, and then after a few minutes, yeah they just look, start looking around then. The phone and check their emails. Yeah. And so forth. So it's not about caring of the acceptance, it's more about handling the fact that the customer will accept the system. Yeah. In a responsible way. This is how we look at that. 

Grayson Brulte:

It comes down to trust. When a customer buys the BMW vehicle with a level three system there, they trust that the system will work. They trust this will work safely, and it'll be a great all around BMW experience. Nicolas, is that where the Ansys software comes in, where you validate the safety principles. So when a consumer goes to purchase a BMW vehicle with L three that get in that vehicle, the BMW group knows that this will safely operate the way it's intended to operate.

Nicolas Orand:

Yes, exactly. And so our role is really to provide these results from the simulation or re simulation work streams and provide this level of confidence in comparison to the test to the results from the drive data. So that's really our role here, the principles for Safe Vehicle L three Safe Equal is really the positive risk balance. This is Probably I've read from literature and technical papers, so it's being safer than a human driver. Okay. And that really is what we wanna validate. So again, the simulation and res simulation, as I said, initially are not the only work streams. In addition, you also have hardware in the loop ground testing that plays a role into making the complete argumentation for safety here. What Ansys does is that capability of doing this simulation and re simulation with the tool chain and certifies this as ISO 26 26 2 tool chain. That's to certify that we are compliant with what we say the product does and how it does it for the use cases that we address. The responsibility of the safety argument. The safety claim is obviously on, on the OEM and that will depend obviously on the OD regulatory bodies and liability insurance is obviously, this is not something Ansys is taking part of. 

Grayson Brulte:

You mentioned the word Nicholas Restimulation. That's a term we haven't heard on the podcast where our listener says, we know what simulation is, but what's restimulation? How would you describe it to a podcast listener? 

Nicolas Orand:

So maybe I should say replay, . Okay. Okay. We have the ability to take recordings from the drive data and play this recording as input data into the simulation tool chain. So that is resimulation.

Grayson Brulte:

Simulations is that it's the key that's enabling the system to operate safely, cuz you're able to run different scenarios, you're getting the driving data to enhance it. Is that a fair statement, Nicholas? 

Nicolas Orand:

Yeah. Simulation is a critical part of all this. Depending on the OD, the operating design domain, whatever, the OD, in fact the number of kilometers you have to run, whether. Truly, physically or on simulation is enormous. Okay? It goes over a billion, so you can do not do it driving vehicles simply. So you need to do simulation. So you're getting inputs from the real vehicle data to. Ensure that your simulations are appropriate, okay? But the key element is really the ability to run simulation to achieve them in a very efficient way, because even simulation could take too long to cover all of these kilometers to cover. So efficient simulation means. Fast. So you have to have the right level of description. You cannot be too detailed everywhere. So you have to have the right level again and be intelligent in a sense that you don't cover the entire space in a very elementary way. You have to be clever in the way you cover the space with the defined KPIs, key performance indicators. Comes back to you as a result and you will concentrate the amount of simulation where it's most needed. Okay, so that's, you have to bear in mind. We're talking about a number of kilometers to be run in order to validate but the software stack as updates. And so every update needs to be validated. So it's not a single one off validation. It's a tool chain that is used and used on and on again.

Grayson Brulte:

Rene, is it the efficiency of Ansys simulation tools that creates the advantage for BMW as you get prepared to roll out the level three system? 

Rene Grosspietsch: 

Ansys is providing a major part of our components in the entire ecosystem. And Nicolas was already addressing that there are different components from real test drive to simulation, resimulation, hardware in the loop and so forth. So it's a big ecosystem around testing that BMW is running and Ansys delivers key components to this ecosystem. That's definitely with a capable team that was was well interacting with our developers to really integrate it in, into this overall approach.

Grayson Brulte:

Yeah, there's clear that there's trust here between Ansys and the BMW group. Which is really important. That's gonna allow BMW to create great products that your consumers are gonna want purchase, and most importantly, they're gonna wanna enjoy. They're gonna want enjoy the BMW experience because what you're creating there with Ansys. Rene, BMW made the decision to offer an SAE level three product to consumers. 

Rene Grosspietsch:

Why? That's that's the first question I on all presentations, why bmw? Yeah. Automated driving. Yes. In the first glance it might conflict to to have this ultimate driving machine in mind. With automated driving, you let it go. Yeah. But in the end it well compliments because in, in some markets and in many situations that we see customers not having fun in their cars. Yeah. Because they're stuck in traffic jams. And they just simply waste their time in that. Yeah. So we are interested in relieving our customers and bring fun also to these moments. Because the car does the job for them then having heads free and looking forward to the freeway open space again and having fun again. So this is why I think automated driving perfectly fits to the idea of a ultimate driving machine, ultimate driving, and let's drive machine. 

Grayson Brulte:

As a former owner of the ultimate driving machine, I had a 525 I and I would take it from Connecticut down to New York City on the West Side Highway sitting in. We're getting there. Maybe I'll get a 750 IL. We're sitting there in traffic and how great would it be to have a level three so I can have fun driving down, and then when I hit the West Side Highway sitting in traffic, I could turn on your level three system. I'm not stressed out by the time I get to the restaurant, the location I'm going to in New York City. And so to me it really compliments what BMW stands for. You're having the ability to drive, and then when you get stuck in that gridlock, you're having the ability to turn on a level three system. Is that one of the ways that BMW is approaching the development of the SAE level three system saying, okay, we have really great driving experiences here that BMW's world renowned for, and then you have these situations where bumper to bumper to bumper. And you're frustrated. 

Rene Grosspietsch:

Exactly. Complimented by, by adding technology, infotainment technology, BMW is looking into many areas to give fun ease even in those situations. Definitely. 

Grayson Brulte:

Yeah. Nicholas, we take that scenario. I'm on the West Side Highway in a BMW level three system in bumper to bumper traffic. Perhaps there's an individual in California stuck on the 1 0 1 in bumper to bumper traffic or somewhere in Florida on I 75 stuck in bumper to bumper. Are you taking all that data and putting into the simulation to enhance the system? As more and more consumers drive more and more miles in these BMW systems? 

Nicolas Orand:

So indeed in your BMW, you probably had the choice. BMW owners of 35 and seven had the choice to provide data, and that data is utilized for developing vehicle. And that's grateful. But in general there is more and more data that comes to OEMs and tier ones to to develop systems. And it'll obviously make a great change on the way. Develop these systems. It's a question of maturation of processes and standards because at the end what we say usually is when we have a critical technical challenge, there are two ways of solving it. Either you find that theory that all of a sudden answers the technical challenge, or you have a process to. To deal with it. And so here what we see is that this data will actually impact greatly the way we sort this because with multiple data we can imagine that we will have standout scenarios which will be linked to standout operating design domain. And with those standouts, and they're only possible if the community is really collaborating together with all of these startups we can move faster. We can actually create systems in the same foundations. And so the foundations for those already exist into the exam community. And you have the the open simulation interfaces. You have the open CRG open Drive label o dd, and open scenario. The foundations exist and you have companies collaborating together and BMW in what is one of those. And you said that there is a great collaboration between Ansys and BMW. And BMW spirit allows for this as allows for this not only with Ansys, with multiple players, and that's great to see this for the community.

Grayson Brulte:

Standards, make the world go round the future of mobility will be built around collaborations. You thrive in simulation. BMW thrives at making some of the world's best vehicles. It's those collaborations that's gonna enable us to happen. Nicholas we talked about the scenario of me being stuck in traffic using the system, but as autonomy gets better and better, how do you see consumers adopting technology? Is it perhaps we get to level four system where, okay, they want to go to grandma's house or they want to go to dinner. How do you see consumers using the technology as autonomy gets better and better? 

Nicolas Orand:

Probably the same way as, any in tech, iTech product, adopt by the mainstream consumers. Okay. And I can refer to the, to, to the book of Crossing the Chasm from Geoffrey Moore here, and we all know about this. Okay. So I think the image still applies here. That's the same case. And you have the early adopters today. People are, some people are visionary and adopting these and want to be the first one to adopt those. Then you're gonna have the early majority. Before getting to the late majority and between the the early and the early adopters and early majority, you have the chasm that needs to be cost. And so you mentioned the case of this traffic jam, and this is a convenience it's very, it's great to have this capability to do something else than just driving bumper to bumper. The other aspect I think will make, that, will make these functions adopted is also all of the advanced level two. Systems that are to do with safety, with comfort and safety, those will actually show people in their usage how benefit, they can benefit from it. And that's another axis where people will further and further adopt these technologies.

Grayson Brulte:

It starts to build to us. How do you see consumers adopting autonomy as the technologies get? 

Rene Grosspietsch:

I think amending to what Nicolas is saying. I told you the story about people sitting in, in an automated test car. Yeah. So as it's, I don't worry too much about acceptance, but but in real world we see level two functions getting better and better. And I see a smooth transition from level two to level three from a customer perspective. That they are in charge or still in charge, in responsible responsibility for driving at level two level but perceiving the the performance of the system. Sometimes maybe also finding out the limitations. Yeah. Sometimes we do by intention. Yeah. Not to make the customer too confident. Yeah. Because that's dangerous. Yeah. So we observe where people look. Are they attentive? Yeah. Can they do their observation job? Yes or no? Yeah. If not, the switch system will switch off. Yeah. If you unbuckle, it will switch off. So those kind of things Yeah. To, this is what I mean with handling, handling customer interaction in a responsible way. Yeah. So we have to take care of the customer and accompany the transition from level two, two, level three. And at some point where we can say, now these situations, we are so confident with our, with the safety of our own. We will take over responsibility now. Yeah. And give it really the, take the driving tasks and let the customer go. And I think it's more a kind of a transition which with the customer maybe not really perceive in that way. Yeah. So I'm pretty sure that this transition process, It is not the big deal. Yeah. So that, my personal opinion, looking at at the technical implementations, it's more on the OEM side. Yeah. To decide on this point in time where you say, now we take responsibility. Yeah. So that will be the critical point. Yeah. 

Grayson Brulte:

BMW takes safety very serious. I wanna highlight something you said there, the seatbelt, if the seat the driver or the passenger under the system turns off.

Rene Grosspietsch:

If you lift your butts, if you unbuckle, it will identify this.

Grayson Brulte:

You think about from a safety perspective, we've all seen YouTube videos that are, I'll use the word highly inappropriate driving behavior, and BMWs sitting there and saying, okay, we're gonna take a leadership. We're not gonna allow you to unbuckle your seatbelt and go in the back because you think you're a YouTube star. We're gonna take safety serious. Are BMW doing anything around driver monitoring where you're monitoring the driver if they're attentive or not? Yeah. Yeah. 

Rene Grosspietsch:

We do. We do. Yeah. We already do. So it is not about, identifying the driver personally. So it's everything is abstracted. Yeah. It's just about identifying perception, attentiveness. Yeah. That it is what it's all about. Yeah, definitely something that BMW looks at and is our we consider it as our responsibility to take care of the driver at that point. 

Grayson Brulte:

I'll sum it up this way. When I, BMW cares about safety, this, to me, the seatbelt, it should be a Nicholas talked about standards, but the seatbelt, if you're gonna be in a highly automated vehicle, the seatbelt sensor should be standard across the board because it will save lives and it will stop idiotic behavior that could not only endanger yourselves, but other individuals on the road. Nicholas, by 2030, 45% of vehicles are projected to be highly automated. From a technical standpoint, what has to happen to enable these vehicles to operate safely in all conditions? BMW's doing it right with the seatbelt sensor. I love that, Rene, but what else has to be done to ensure the safe operations of these vehicles? 

Nicolas Orand:

Yeah, it's a great challenge. It's a very difficult challenge because operating in all conditions and referring to the number of kilometers that needs to be driven or run, okay. In order to validate.If you want to validate today, you still have a later part of the process. The real test that you need to do, if you want to do this in all conditions, that means you need to do this. Upfront in the virtual world as well. And today so when you talk about all conditions, you also have twin conditions as whether particular lighting, severe environment that, that's a lot of testing or even simulation Today. There is no product that can actually simulate this in a very cost effective and time effective way. You can simulate this phenomenon, but they. Time consuming and you remember the number of kilometers you need to run you can't really afford this or if you or the cost associated to this would be too high. So this is really what needs to happen is to advance the way we are actually able to model those phenomenon. So we need to have the proper simulation model. And that's a term when you, a term when you when you do physics based simulation you always talk about the proper model. Okay? The one that is, Important for the purpose that you that you're looking to address. Okay? You need to have the ability to automate the environment modeling, because modeling the environment is very costly too. It has to be at the level of your representation, of your perception of your system. And you need to run way faster than you can today, way faster than real time. It's not just adding GPUs to today, GPU as a cost and you need to be able to do this. That's already on the simulation part. A lot of challenges. And then there is on the risk analysis, I believe there is also a challenge here to formalize the way we do risk analysis. And we do this critical, this is a critical area of maturation that we need to advance. This is what Ansys this is working on. Yeah, 2030 it's a great challenge.

Grayson Brulte:

It's a great challenge, but it's a challenge. We'll get there. The industry will get there. Simulation will play a critical role in the future of autonomy. It will allow companies such to model different scenarios that will help make the road safer and the technology safer. So when consumers of BMWs operate these systems, they can ensure that the BMW brand means safety. Rene, from a design perspective, how is BMW preparing for a highly automated future?

Rene Grosspietsch:

The first thing that we did in the past was we reorganized our software and the whole ADAS development. A couple of years ago, we merged all the the organization units. We reinvented the process of designing. Professional automotive software. Yeah. Which is, I would say really state of the art in the industry if not leading with a big software team, building safe software. It's a very different idea. Yeah. If you build any application or if it's supposed to be a safe application where you need very broad domain expertise you in in a logical components perception, decision making, hardware implementation, and all of these kind of things? Yeah, so this is now, I would say like a really good organization that has been evolved and and. I have to mention again, but there's still, the safety claim is embedded in the genes, it's always there. Yeah. Everybody feels responsible for every mile that's been driven on the road. Yeah. So in, in a safe way. Yeah. So this is embedded in in, in the whole organization. So that makes you confident that it's, that we well prepared for the future, but at the same time, I would say, We have been very optimistic in the past. Yeah. That we can beat the challenge in the next years. And we learned it's far harder than we already thought It is. Yeah. But we made the same experience as I think many other organizations in the world now are doing. Yeah. Or did it in the younger past. So we believe in automation up to level four SA level four is still a very hard challenge. In the next, in the upcoming years, I do not believe in a BMW without a steering wheel before my retirement. So I think it it's still a long way Yeah. To make that really happen in a safe way. And how do we get there? And we talked about, Yeah. It is a continuous process, so it, there will not be level, level four level. I do not talk about level five, but level three or level four from one day to the other, it's a million of scenarios. Yeah. Out there it's OD D from. You just drive bumper to bumper up to you, drive on a on a road without separated lanes. Yeah. With opposite traffic oncoming traffic and a delta speed of 200. Yeah. So it's a huge ODD bandwidth. And we will see a smooth transition from the small O DD to a big ODD over the next. 10th. Yes. I would say yeah. And we will get there step by step making. Preparing that simulation is a huge, an important part to understand how the system reacts in certain situations, by the way, that you cannot even test on the railroad and hopefully you don't. Because we only look at the credit look of things. Yeah. We. This is 90% of the job. Look at the critical things. You don't want to test critical things in real world traffic. So this is, this will be part of, and we learn step by step on each scenarios. So this will be a process. And I'm happy to say that BMW has. It's pretty much advanced in taking the data. Customers happy to share that. Yeah. We don't talk. It's all anonymized. Yeah. We don't we don't care about if it's Mike, Sean, or Lisa who's driving. Yeah. We only are interested in the situations that are being perceived. And how they evolved. And then simulate and look how our system. Is what would react in such a situation. Yeah so this is what we are doing step by step with improving quality and richness of the data coming from a huge fleet of cars out there.

Grayson Brulte:

The data will make your product better--SAE level four, well it may be a hard challenge but it's a worthy challenge. And Nicholas, what as we, what role will Ansys play as we move towards, or we, you wanna use the term drive towards SAE level four. What role will Ansys play?

Nicolas Orand: 

To me we will, we'll still be standing with our customers and serving the, serving our customers. So I think the same principle applies but they need to be enriched. They need to be matured, as Rene was saying it's a lot. To learn to all this. I was mentioning the level of details of representations of the environment sensor, et cetera. There is also more technologies to come to, to bring in like the communication, how old communications, vehicle to anything V two X or vehicle to vehicle will play into this. This will. Put another level of complexity into scenarios. As again, Rene was mentioning the number of scenarios will explode, and so the same will apply with, so that means the same principle, meaning that more and more simulation that needs to be efficient. And also, maybe I didn't mention that the efficiency of finding the cases that are relevant, it's not only an expert knowledge, it is an expert knowledge, but. But you need the tool to help expert in identifying these cases, the cases you don't want to test those you need to be able to identify them through simulation, explore them at the level of depth that is really required to see how that. System, your system and the test is behaving for this test. Yeah, again, it's a lot of challenge ahead of us and Ansys will continue improving our capabilities and we have the right DNA with simulation to do this. 

Grayson Brulte:

And you're getting the data from BMW that will allow you to improve your simulation models. Rene, as we, we think about the future of autonomy, we get to sce level four. Do we ultimately end up with bespoke offerings depending on the application use case? It's a different type of vehicles, taking kids to school or a different vehicle commuting into the city for work. Do we end up with different use cases as we eventually crack level four? 

Rene Grosspietsch:

Maybe. Yeah. I could imagine this. We look, we see it already. Different parties or or companies approaching the market with those kind of applications. We'll see. Yeah. What is the right approach? If you immediately start from zero, more or less to level four and let the car go? Yeah. In, in, in complex situations at low speed, or if you approach it from level two of a level three and then to level four with the, with more controlled environments. Yeah. But maybe with at the higher speeds. So we, as BMW believes in in, and the offer coming from the level three Yeah. In more controlled situations. Yeah. With less risks. No. Vulnerable road users, separate lanes maybe lower speeds, starting with lower speeds as Daimler does also. Yeah. And gaining experience and and do a safe step by step. 

Grayson Brulte:

As we get to autonomy, I have to ask here, I really loved, I think it was the eighties when BMW did the painted cars. You had the Andy Warhol car As you eventually roll out an SAE level four bmw, I love to see BMW bring back the painted cars with you. Did such a fantastic job with them. 

Rene Grosspietsch:

Keep it in mind. 

Grayson Brulte:

Nicholas, what are your thoughts on the bespoke offerings? Do we eventually get there? 

Nicolas Orand:

Obviously the automotive market is a tremendous market for Ansys and Ansys will provide solution for for the automotive market and will evolve function of the level of DOD or the level of of autonomy that needs to be reached. I don't believe we will have a dedicated solution per levels or et cetera. What we will do will actually provide the core simulation capabilities that really enabled our customer to to have this diversity because we don't believe that OEMs are addressing the same challenge the same way. So we need to add that level of flexibility. That also means that they need to have the customization abilities through APIs. All of our product needs to have APIs and have APIs, so they. Connected to other products within Ansys or externally to, to Ansys. So that's a lot to, to be done. On our side. You have to bear in mind that for us, autonomy is not only automotive it's other markets, it's other areas like aerospace. 
Of I control and robotics. There's a lot ongoing there as well. And the requirements are very different. The types of sensors are very different. The, so the use cases are much different. And we need to, and we do address these as well as a simulation company, as a simulation software provider. We stay open obviously through this approach of core simulation capabilities. And APIs for customization of solutions. 

Grayson Brulte:

It's truly amazing how much the mobility industry can learn from the aerospace industry or from managing fleets, managing operations, safety best practices. That's, to me is the best way to describe it. There's so much learnings that we can continue to learn from the aerospace industry. Nicholas, in your opinion, what is the future of mobility . 

Nicolas Orand:

Yeah, of course, we all ask ourselves that question. The future of mobility. First Ansys will serve its customers and will serve its customer. The way has always done the best, as best as possible always I personally believe that the future of mobility is with energy efficient and safety ways of being transported from point A to point B. I guess that, the energy efficient and sustainability of our environment requires to have less pollutant emissions. So indeed I believe that a clever way of of. Being mobile in the world is critical for humanity, is it? In a very long term. Probably in the meantime, there is a lot to learn. We have a lot of, a lot to develop and that technology, again, doesn't only, is not only utilize for mobility as I was saying, for agricultural it can be used. So it's for productivity, it's for safety in many other domains. So this will be great for the industry in. As a wall. And what we see is that those products are becoming really high end products. The value there is in such a vehicle is tremendous. It's amazing. If you look, 10 years back or 20 years back, you would not imagine this would've happened. Yeah. But in the meantime, yes we'll have to be more clever as human because we love our Earth.

Grayson Brulte:

we do love Earth. Rene, what's your opinion on the future of mobility?

Rene Grosspietsch:

Is my personal opinion. Yeah. So I'm not speaking with the BMW voice now but maybe it compliments. I love the sharing idea. I think there's big value in, in public transportation, but to be honest Knowing how humans are. Yeah. If you want to go into the park, you don't wait for another 20 person until they also want to go to the park. You just walk there. Yeah. And I think we will for long time see individual traffic and individual mobility, but it will evolve over and it has. I don't think that we drive with a 2.5 ton vehicle in 20 years time or 30 years time. Yeah. Just sitting alone in it. Yeah. So I deeply hope and this is my motivation also for working on an automatic driving, is to build a solution. Yeah. That allows us to, to build innovative mobility, which is smarter, which is lightweight. Which does not cause any accidents. So you don't need to build all the steel around you. Yeah. It maybe also drives autonomously on automatically. You don't need to care about it, and it brings you just from A to B what is the main purpose of mobility, yeah. And and I strongly believe that technology will lead us there to bring sustainable mobility, individual mobility into the world that we can all justify also in terms of of sustainability. 

Grayson Brulte:

Mobility is evolving and will continue to evolve and it's, I believe it's gonna be driven by consumers and gentlemen, this has been a really fascinating conversation where you shed a lot of light on the Ansys BMW Group partnership. And as we look to wrap up this insightful conversation, what would you like the listener to take away with them? And Rene, we'll start with you, please.

Rene Grosspietsch:

I can tell you the path, what's automated and autonomous driving will be, And and I recommend everybody to try a level two function and a BMW being at an i, a new I seven, for instance. Great car. And when it comes to level three, just stay tuned. Would be a 

Grayson Brulte:

Good thing. It will be a good thing. And BMW's a great brand, building great cars. Nicholas, what would you like our listeners take away with them today? 

Nicolas Orand:

Yes, again, yes go and try your BMW. I think it's it's a great experience indeed. I, autonomous driving is not only about autonomous driving, it's about enriching technologies. That serves many other purposes. So indeed it serves the main purpose of mobility but it's, and safety and it serves as well other areas as I was just saying. And and we are grateful to have a partner such as BMW to help us advancing into this area. So very much looking forward to continue developing this. 

Grayson Brulte: 

Partnerships and collaborations are the other future of autonomous driving. Autonomy is exciting because today is tomorrow. Tomorrow is today, and the future is collaborations. Nicholas, Rene, thank you so much for coming on SAE Tomorrow Today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thank you for listening to SAE Tomorrow Today. If you've enjoyed this episode and would like to hear more, please kindly rate review and let us know what topics you'd like for us to explore next. Be sure to join us next week as we hear from representatives from HERE technologies. On this episode, they'll discuss the impact that intelligence, speed assistance technology will have on the driving experience. SAE International makes no representations as to the accuracy of the information presented in this podcast. The information and opinions are for general information only. SAE International does not endorse, approve, recommend or certify any information, product, process, service, or organization presented or mentioned in this podcast.

 

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