System trains driverless cars in simulation before they hit the road

A simulation system invented at MIT to train driverless cars creates a photorealistic world with infinite steering possibilities, helping the cars learn to navigate a host of worse-case scenarios before cruising down real streets. Control systems, or "controllers," for autonomous vehicles largely rely on real-world datasets of driving trajectories from human drivers. From these data, they learn how to emulate safe steering controls in a variety of situations. But real-world data from hazardous "edge cases," such as nearly crashing or being forced off the road or into other lanes, are -- fortunately -- rare. Some computer programs, called "simulation engines," aim to imitate these situations by rendering detailed virtual roads to help train the controllers to recover.