Self-Driving Delivery Company Inks Major Virtual Testing Deal

Self-driving company Nuro has announced a deal with Foretellix aimed at accelerating the rollout of its autonomous vehicles (AVs) for last-mile delivery.

The partnership will see Israel’s Foretellix assist with virtual testing of Nuro’s automated driving tech.

The Tel Aviv company is emerging as one of the leading providers of Verification and Validation (V&V) solutions for Automated Driving Systems (ADS) and Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), having recently secured Series C funding of $85 million.

Nuro and Foretellix say they will “collaborate to develop an extended library of scenarios for urban environments.”

This will then be used to enable virtual testing using Foretellix’s Foretify platform and the Silicon Valley firm’s simulator.

It is hoped that by going down this route, some of the high costs traditionally associated with AV testing can be reined in, without any compromises on safety.

This is particularly important for Nuro, which as with other companies in the AV space, has faced challenges over the past 18 months, having been forced to reduce its workforce on two separate occasions despite having raised more than $2 billion in funding over the past few years.

Its Nuro Driver ADS consists of AI-first software and custom-built sensing and compute hardware, and is at the heart of its driverless delivery pods that have helped it secure partnerships with the likes of Uber Eats, FedEx and Domino’s.

Related:Self-Driving Company Nuro Cuts Jobs, Stalls Commercialization

Foretify, meanwhile, provides a unified V&V flow that combines real-world test drives and hyper-scale simulation.

The tie-up will see Foretellix’s tech automatically generate millions of test scenarios that will help uncover potentially dangerous edge cases, reducing the risk of accidents in the pods’ designated Operation Design Domain.

It does this by analyzing logs collected by actual test vehicles and replaying multiple variations of scenarios virtually. This then allows Nuro’s engineers to identify potential problems more easily, without having to recreate the scenarios on the road – a time-consuming and expensive exercise.

“Foretellix’s leadership in… abstract scenario description and testing automation will play a critical role in Nuro’s development process,” said Nuro’s Sreeja Roy Singh. “It allows us to make our research and development more efficient, while ensuring our technology operates safely in real-world scenarios.”

The Nuro deal marks another success for Foretellix, which already counts Toyota, Volvo, Isuzu and Daimler among its customers.