A Simulation and Design System for Tactical Driving Algorithms

Abstract

Intelligent vehicles must make real-time tactical level decisions to drive in mixed traffic environments. Since repeatable testing of different algorithms in rare and potentially dangerous situations is necessary, we have developed a custom simulator for this task. SHIVA (Simulated Highways for Intelligent Vehicle Algorithms) mirrors many aspects of the Carnegie Mellon Navlab [26, 13] system, enabling algorithms developed in simulation to be implemented on the robot with minimal modification. Realistic sensor models encourage developers to create algorithms that will work on real robots. Incremental development is facilitated through hierarchies for vehicles, sensors and reasoning objects. An integrated simulation and animation environment provides interactive graphical debugging capabilities. Introduction Simulators are often used to aid in the design of complex systems that are too difficult or expensive to prototype or too dangerous to test in reality. While these simulators may be...