OmniCAV: Aimsun is one of a consortium of 11 organisations embarking on a UK government funded project to create a high fidelity
simulation environment, including artificial intelligence (AI) trained models of road users, to test connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs).

OmniCAV, which was awarded funding as part of a competition run by the Centre for Connected and
Autonomous Vehicles (CCAV) and Innovate UK, will be fed by highly detailed geospatial data, traffic
camera data, accident data and near-miss analyses. These inputs will be used to create a high-fidelity
model of the physical environment, realistic AI road users, and an extensive open-access scenario
library.

The simulator technology will offer market-leading coverage of a diverse range of road networks
including rural, peri-urban and urban roads.

OmniCAV will lay the foundations for the development of a comprehensive, robust and secure
simulator, aimed at providing a certification tool for CAVs that can be used by regulatory and
accreditation bodies, insurers and manufacturers to accelerate the safe development of CAVs.
The project will validate the realism of the simulator by comparing its outputs with data measured
for the equivalent locations and scenarios in the real world. This will include tests on proving
grounds and open roads.

The project will culminate in a CAV being put through the entire end-to-end OmniCAV testing
programme, from simulator-only, to controlled environment, to on-road testing.
Through representation on international standard committees, OmniCAV’s results will influence, or
lead to the creation of, new international standards to ensure safe deployment and certification of
CAVs.

Kirsty Lloyd-Jukes, CEO of project lead Latent Logic, said “OmniCAV’s vision is ‘CAVs for All’: bringing
safer, smarter, self-driving mobility to urban and rural areas. But first we need to know that
driverless cars really can handle our challenging road conditions, on country lanes as much as
crowded city streets. Virtual reality “driving tests” are the only way of doing this, which is why we’ve
brought together these 11 leading organisations to build a world-first, AI-based simulation of real
Oxfordshire roads to securely and reliably test autonomous car safety.”

The partners in the project are: Latent Logic (lead), Admiral, Aimsun, Arcadis, Arrival, Ordnance
Survey, Oxfordshire County Council, UK Atomic Energy Authority, WMG (at the University of
Warwick), and XPI Simulation. Thatcham Research is providing advice as a non-funded partner.