Vehicle-in-virtual-environment (VVE) methods and systems for autonomous driving system

The Vehicle-in-Virtual-Environment (VVE) technology described herein is directed to the use of a computational system and software that generates a highly realistic real world or representative 3D environment, generates raw perception and localization and communication sensor information from that environment, and feeds these to the autonomous driving computer system in an autonomous vehicle (AV) such that the autonomous driving system behaves as if it is in that environment.