At South by Southwest 2024 in Austin, TX, next week, Valeo will present an XR (extended-reality) in-car gaming experience for passengers developed using Unity Runtime. With Valeo Racer, the company says the intent is that every ride becomes a special and fun experience, and is the first XR video game to combine live video and “world perception” of the real environment with digital gaming elements. The “infinite runner” game is generated by a software stack developed by Valeo. Check out the video here.

The game integrates the vehicle’s real surroundings, including buildings, roads, and traffic, and offers unique experiences and challenges with each session. It uses the vehicle’s existing ADAS (advanced driving assistance system) elements including camera, radar, and ultrasonic sensors as well as AI (artificial intelligence) perception algorithms to insert the car’s real-time environment data into Unity’s Runtime to generate game elements.

Runtime is a proprietary component that handles various critical components of the game, rendering high-performance graphics, managing user input and interactions, coordinating game components, and supporting real-time physics simulation, animation, scripting languages, asset management, and networking—all on the end device. The result allows passengers to play on their phone or tablet connected with in-vehicle Wi-Fi and even compete during trips.

“Valeo strives to offer car manufacturers new solutions and technologies to meet fast-evolving needs and expectations of drivers and passengers,” said Geoffrey Bouquot, EVP Strategy and CTO at Valeo. “As vehicles are equipped with more sensors and software to support driving assistance and autonomous driving systems, we see opportunities to reuse sensors and computing power already onboard to support new entertainment experiences. Working with Unity teams and relying on their amazing expertise in gaming to insert digital elements into our live feed of the vehicle environment has been a great journey of partnership and innovation.”

A long-time cornerstone of game development, Unity has gained traction within the automotive industry. The Unity Engine is used throughout the sector from pre-production design concepts and ADAS simulation tools to production infotainment systems deployed in vehicles.

“The Valeo Racer experience highlights how Unity can be used in the end-to-end production cycle within the automotive industry by uniting real-time technologies,” said Marc Whitten, Chief Product and Technology Officer, at Unity Create. “We hope the unique experience developed with Valeo serves as a template for engineers and creators to think beyond the use of our technology for just safety, to ultimate passenger satisfaction—front seat and back.”

Two of the biggest components of the Unity platform are the Editor for design and the Runtime that provides cross-platform compatibility, allowing creators to develop a game once and deploy it across 20+ platforms, a Unity spokesperson explained to Futurride. Runtime handles various critical components of the game, such as executing game logic, rendering high-performance graphics, managing user input and interactions, coordinating game components, supporting real-time physics simulation, animation, scripting languages, asset management, and networking—all on the end device.

“Think of it as using all of the compute power on the device, or in the car in this case, without the need to keep calling out to the cloud or whatever external hosting systems would be there,” he explained. “It saves in power and dollars.”

 

Bouquot on the experience

As the automotive industry evolves toward autonomous and connected vehicles, in-car entertainment will become increasingly important to enhance the overall user experience for passengers.

“We are making progressively our way towards more and more entertainment and technology that go beyond traditional cars,” Bouquot told Futurride, in the lead-up to next week’s SXSW, where Valeo will have its first official presence. “We are here to showcase the convergence between entertainment and gaming as the cars become fully connected and software-defined. [The game] is really the enabler of such a kind of new experiences.”

He is excited to be at the show to present a first-of-a-kind offer mixing a 3D real-time perception of a car’s surroundings using its sensors, “and at the same time doing that with a game and not only for drivers but also for the passengers. We are pushing more and more into that direction.”

The company’s work with Unity is an example of its efforts in partnering with other innovators for better solutions.

“The purpose is really to form an ecosystem and how we can go forward,” said Bouquot. “This is what we’ll do partnering with Unity.”

The collaboration enables the supplier to leverage Unity’s engine for gaming and simplify the in-car experience.

“You can connect this through your tablet or smartphone [and] to the Wi-Fi of the car,” he said. “What interested [Unity] is Valeo’s capabilities on technologies. We can offer now the sensors that are already embedded in the car. It’s really something that could happen very fast.”

Valeo Racer offers passengers a re-imagined infotainment experience as well as an on-road demonstration of how Valeo’s automotive XR gaming SDK (software development kit) could help car manufacturers and other collaborators offer new in-vehicle entertainment powered by existing equipment.

“The point is how the environment, not only the software and hardware but also the SDK, can plug into something larger,” Bouquot said. “We would also welcome other developers to come and just create based on what we can offer.”

 

Addressing megatrends

Racer is one Valeo effort that not only showcases the passenger experience but also touches upon industry megatrends of software-defined vehicles, artificial intelligence, electrification, and ultimately autonomy. The company is working on what Bouquot calls the “empathic car,” for which its developers are thinking about how to make sure that drivers are more engaged and ready to get back to the driving task when automated driving systems request that hand-off.

The company is offering Racer demos at its exhibit in Comedor at 501 Colorado Street from March 10 to 12. Another Valeo experience at the event will be its PanoramaXR, which lets drivers share their journeys with loved ones with a remote solution enabling them to see a 360° view of the car’s driving environment on their smartphone screen as if it were filmed by a drone.

The company will also present its latest technologies for more sustainable and safer mobility.

Valeo’s e-golf carts will help SXSW organizers and the Valeo team get around Austin.

The Cyclee adaptive electric mid-drive unit powered by 48-V technology will be presented on a Fuell bike. The system understands what riders want and boosts all rides with its automatic seven-speed gear shifting and the highest gearbox torque level—130 N·m (96 lb·ft)—available on the market.

INEEZ offers an efficient and lightweight solution to recharge a vehicle inductively. The company says it is the only wireless solution that uses an ultra-low operating frequency, around 3 kHz, for a lighter, simpler, and safer charging, and it supports charging for autonomous vehicles that can drive themselves onto an inductive charging area.

Valeo’s third-generation SCALA 3 lidar provides better Level 2+ functionality and Level 3-4 highway and urban autonomous driving. The technology draws from Valeo’s substantial experience in automotive-grade lidars including the SCALA Gen 2, the key enabler for the new Mercedes-Benz Level 3 traffic jam pilot.