XPI's Driving Simulator wins Industry's Top Award

3rd January 2010

Presagis' awards for excellence in simulation are announced at the industry's major conference in Orlando each year. XPI was selected as the winner in the category of "Best Simulation Application" for its innovative implementation of artificial intelligence in its police driving simulator.

David Fulker, XPI's technical director, said "We knew that a really good police driving simulator would push the limits of existing software tools. We needed the best artificial intelligence from a developer prepared to work with us to make it even better. For expert drivers we needed a particularly accurate model of the car dynamics and realistic sound effects for additional subliminal cues. Bearing in mind the rapid advances in databases, we needed to future-proof the simulator with a simple way to integrate the AI rules to cope with customer's expectations of local road layouts. Creator and AI implant have proved to be an excellent decision enabling us to develop a world-leading simulator"

The police driving simulator is particularly difficult in having to model such a wide range of behaviours encountered by the police when they switch on the blue lights or siren. Although most drivers move to the side some drivers just stop (sometimes in very awkward places) and other drivers don't change their behavious at all.

Pursuit driving is even more complex as the suspect car disobeys many of the road rules so the AI vehicles cannot make any assumptions: they can't even assume other cars are travelling in the same direction on a motorway.

Simon Skinner, XPI's managing director, said "The competition for Presagis' awards in the simulation industry is always very strong. At first we were pleased just to have been selected for the 2010 calendar but now we are delighted to have been recognized with the award for the best application".