Grand Theft Auto V comes true

mountain view - If in three years the first self-propelled cars totally independent driving on the road, as hope the creators, they owe it to Grand Theft Auto V. The imaginary streets of Los Santos in the game are realistic enough to test the technology.

Companies like Ford, Google, Uber and General Motors will be far enough in a few years to bring their cars on the market. They have extensive testing programs, but the people behind the wheel can not make enough mileage to go to extremes with the cars. A simulator can. Which never has to stop, has no legs to stretch, do not need to refuel and can keep going indefinitely. So get Waymo, the Google project, easily about 5 million kilometers per day.

'' It is not practical to work only with data from the roads. With simulation you can get a certain scenario time and time running time, unlimited times, and then test again, '' said Davide Bacchet Developer NIO told Bloomberg.

Chip maker Intel and the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, last year devised a way to use Grand Theft Auto for tests. The game has 262 different cars, more than a thousand pedestrians and animals that all behave differently, fourteen weather and numerous bridges and tunnel crossings, traffic signs and traffic lights. The information provided by the game, similar to the data that would have sensors in real cars.

The biggest problem the self-propelled cars still may face, is responding to unexpected circumstances, such as a playing child incurs the street. People do it better and more responsive. As a test car is not responding properly and the driver should take control, '' we can replay the exact situation and predict what would have done the car. If the simulator shows that the car has to drive better, our developers can customize the software and test the changes in the simulator, '' says Waymo.