The CAT Vehicle Testbed: A Simulator with Hardware in the Loop for Autonomous Vehicle Applications
Affiliation
Univ Arizona, Dept Elect & Comp EngnIssue Date
2018-04-12
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OPEN PUBL ASSOCCitation
Bhadani, Rahul & Sprinkle, Jonathan & Bunting, Matthew. (2018). The CAT Vehicle Testbed: A Simulator with Hardware in the Loop for Autonomous Vehicle Applications. Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science. 269. 32-47. 10.4204/EPTCS.269.4.Rights
Copyright © R. Bhadani, J. Sprinkle & M. Bunting. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
This paper presents the CAT Vehicle (Cognitive and Autonomous Test Vehicle) Testbed: a research testbed comprised of a distributed simulation-based autonomous vehicle, with straightforward transition to hardware in the loop testing and execution, to support research in autonomous driving technology. The evolution of autonomous driving technology from active safety features and advanced driving assistance systems to full sensor-guided autonomous driving requires testing of every possible scenario. However, researchers who want to demonstrate new results on a physical platform face difficult challenges, if they do not have access to a robotic platform in their own labs. Thus, there is a need for a research testbed where simulation-based results can be rapidly validated through hardware in the loop simulation, in order to test the software on board the physical platform. The CAT Vehicle Testbed offers such a testbed that can mimic dynamics of a real vehicle in simulation and then seamlessly transition to reproduction of use cases with hardware. The simulator utilizes the Robot Operating System (ROS) with a physics-based vehicle model, including simulated sensors and actuators with configurable parameters. The testbed allows multi-vehicle simulation to support vehicle to vehicle interaction. Our testbed also facilitates logging and capturing of the data in the real time that can be played back to examine particular scenarios or use cases, and for regression testing. As part of the demonstration of feasibility, we present a brief description of the CAT Vehicle Challenge, in which student researchers from all over the globe were able to reproduce their simulation results with fewer than 2 days of interfacing with the physical platform.Note
Open access journalISSN
2075-2180Version
Final published versionSponsors
National Science Foundation; Air Force Office of Scientific Research [1253334, 1262960, 1419419, 1446435, 1446690, 1446702, 1446715 1521617]ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.4204/eptcs.269.4