Institute for Transport Studies

FACULTY OF ENVIRONMENT

Driving Simulators to support the

design of Autonomous Vehicles
Richard Romano
Acknowledgements

Work discussed
was performed at
Realtime
Technologies, Inc.
between 1997 and
2015
What is in an Autonomous
Vehicle?

Sensors
Lane Position
Distance and
Speed of Car Steering
Ahead Control Wheel
Strategy Acc/Brake
Pedal
Map
Map of Road
GPS Location

Stanford Autonomous Vehicle

http://stanford.edu/~cpiech/cs221/apps/driverlessCar.html
Model Based Design

From FLUIDON: 2011 European HyperWorks Technology Conference

What Do We Need for AV Testing

Reconfigurable Simulator
• Add test hardware
• Add test software
Real World Databases*
Test Scenarios
Virtual Prototype of
Autonomous Control
Software

Iowa Driving Simulator circa 1993

Automated Highway Systems
Virtual Prototyping

ITS Safety and Technology group is

regularly testing the human factors
aspects of the System Functional
Specification
 Software in the Loop

Nissan integrates and tests their various

software systems inside their driving simulator
in Silicon Valley.
(2013)

www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/07/31/inside-nissan-motor-cos-silicon.html
Need Real World Databases

Correlated GPS
Information

Working towards 10 cm accuracy

Software in the Loop

Lane Position
Distance and
Speed of Car
Ahead Control Steering
(Simulator) Strategy Wheel
(Nissan Acc/Brake
Software) Pedal
Map of
Simulated Road
GPS Location
Software in the Loop

MIT Urban Challenge (2007)

http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/TechPapers/MIT.pdf
Software in the Loop

MIT

http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/TechPapers/MIT.pdf
Hardware in the Loop

MVTA and University of

Minnesota have developed
augmented driver’s aid system to
support driving on shoulders

http://www.bus2.me.umn.edu/
MVTA Bus

http://www.bus2.me.umn.edu/
Hardware in the Loop

Real vehicle hardware

integrated into Simulator.
Hardware/software testing is
then possible.

(2009)
Rapid Prototyping

Current Research Interest – Use Driving Simulator Traffic

Controller in the Real Vehicle
Human Factors Autonomous
Traffic Controller

What can we learn?

Original IDS State
Machine (1993)
Link list of vehicles on
the road. Only
compared to the
vehicle in front of it
O(n).
Similar to Dracula?

Scenario Authoring for Virtual Environments J. Cremer and J. Kearney

MIT Autonomous Vehicle
Controller (2007)

http://archive.darpa.mil/grandchallenge/TechPapers/MIT.pdf
Hierarchical State Machine
Used in NADS

1995 National
Advanced Driving
Simulator
Used in
CounterStrike and
Left for Dead
http://aigamedev.co
m/open/review/hcs
m-concurrent-state-
machine/

HCSM: A Framework for Behavior and Scenario Control in

Virtual Environments: J. Cremer, J. Kearney, Y. Papelis
Road Based Control

Romano (2001)
Vehicles check into the
roads and
intersections they are
associated with and let
the road or intersection
control them.
Compares all vehicles
on the road to each
other with O(n log n)
complexity.
MOTUS Microsimulation

Modern transport
microsimulation model
taking the world by storm.
Being integrated into
multiple driving simulators.

A Modular Approach for Exchangeable

Driving Task Models in a Microscopic Simulation Framework
Wouter Schakel et al.
Let’s Be Provocative

Let’s assume in mixed traffic (autonomous and traditional

vehicles) that autonomous vehicles should drive like safe
humans.
Why shouldn’t the same controller be usable in Human
Factors Driving Simulator Traffic Microsimulation, Transport
Microsimulation, and in the Real Vehicle?
Wouldn’t this lead to better models and controllers all around?
Turing Test of Autonomous
Vehicles

Is there a real driver in there?

YouTube/Magic of Rahat