We discuss a platform that has both software and hardware components, and whose purpose is to support research into characterizing and mitigating the sim-to-real gap in robotics and vehicle autonomy engineering. The software is operating-system independent and has three main components: a simulation engine called Chrono, which supports high-fidelity vehicle and sensor simulation; an autonomy stack for algorithm design and testing; and a development environment that supports visualization and hardware-in-the-loop experimentation. The accompanying hardware platform is a 1/6th scale vehicle augmented with reconfigurable mountings for computing, sensing, and tracking. Since this vehicle platform has a digital twin within the simulation environment, one can test the same autonomy perception, state estimation, or controls algorithms, as well as the processors they run on, in both simulation and reality. A demonstration is provided to show the utilization of this platform for autonomy research. Future work will concentrate on augmenting ART/ATK with support for a full-sized Chevy Bolt EUV, which will be made available to this group in the immediate future.

我们描述了一个软件框架和用于串联的硬件平台，用于设计和分析模拟和现实中机器人自主算法。该软件是开源的，独立的容器和操作系统（OS）的软件，具有三个主要组件：COS ++车辆仿真框架（Chrono）的ROS 2接口（Chrono），该框架提供了高保真的轮毂/跟踪的车辆和传感器仿真；基于ROS 2的基本基于算法设计和测试的自治堆栈；以及一个开发生态系统，可在感知，状态估计，路径计划和控制中进行可视化和硬件实验。随附的硬件平台是1/6刻度的车辆，并具有可重新配置的用于计算，传感和跟踪的可重新配置的安装。其目的是允许对算法和传感器配置进行物理测试和改进。由于该车辆平台在模拟环境中具有数字双胞胎，因此可以测试和比较模拟和现实中相同的算法和自主堆栈。该平台的构建是为了表征和管理模拟到现实差距。在此，我们描述了如何建立，部署和用于改善移动应用程序的自主权。

Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) are key components of the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS), and all-terrain Autonomous Ground Vehicles (AGVs) are indispensable tools for a wide range of applications such as disaster response, automated mining, agriculture, military operations, search and rescue missions, and planetary exploration. Experimental validation is a requisite for CAV and AGV research, but requires a large, safe experimental environment when using full-size vehicles which is time-consuming and expensive. To address these challenges, we developed XTENTH-CAR (eXperimental one-TENTH scaled vehicle platform for Connected autonomy and All-terrain Research), an open-source, cost-effective proportionally one-tenth scaled experimental vehicle platform governed by the same physics as a full-size on-road vehicle. XTENTH-CAR is equipped with the best-in-class NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin System on Module (SOM), stereo camera, 2D LiDAR and open-source Electronic Speed Controller (ESC) with drivers written in the new Robot Operating System (ROS 2) to facilitate experimental CAV and AGV perception, motion planning and control research, that incorporate state-of-the-art computationally expensive algorithms such as Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL). XTENTH-CAR is designed for compact experimental environments, and aims to increase the accessibility of experimental CAV and AGV research with low upfront costs, and complete Autonomous Vehicle (AV) hardware and software architectures similar to the full-sized X-CAR experimental vehicle platform, enabling efficient cross-platform development between small-scale and full-scale vehicles.

尽管机器人学课程在高等教育方面已建立，但这些课程通常专注于理论，有时缺乏对开发，部署和将软件应用于真实硬件的技术的系统覆盖。此外，大多数用于机器人教学的硬件平台是针对中学水平的年轻学生的低级玩具。为了解决这一差距，开发了一个自动驾驶汽车硬件平台，称为第1 f1 f1tth，用于教授自动驾驶系统。本文介绍了以“赛车”和替换考试的竞赛为主题的各种教育水平教学模块和软件堆栈。第1辆车提供了一个模块化硬件平台及其相关软件，用于教授自动驾驶算法的基础知识。从基本的反应方法到高级计划算法，教学模块通过使用第1辆车的自动驾驶来增强学生的计算思维。第1辆汽车填补了研究平台和低端玩具车之间的空白，并提供了学习自主系统中主题的动手经验。多年的四所大学为他们的学期本科和研究生课程采用了教学模块。学生反馈用于分析第1个平台的有效性。超过80％的学生强烈同意，硬件平台和模块大大激发了他们的学习，而超过70％的学生强烈同意，硬件增强了他们对学科的理解。调查结果表明，超过80％的学生强烈同意竞争激励他们参加课程。

从教育和研究的角度来看，关于硬件的实验是机器人技术和控制的关键方面。在过去的十年中，已经介绍了许多用于车轮机器人的开源硬件和软件框架，主要采用独轮车和类似汽车的机器人的形式，目的是使更广泛的受众访问机器人并支持控制系统开发。独轮车通常很小且便宜，因此有助于在较大的机队中进行实验，但它们不适合高速运动。类似汽车的机器人更敏捷，但通常更大且更昂贵，因此需要更多的空间和金钱资源。为了弥合这一差距，我们介绍了Chronos，这是一种具有定制开源电子设备的新型汽车的1/28比例机器人，以及CRS是用于控制和机器人技术的开源软件框架。 CRS软件框架包括实施各种最新的算法，以进行控制，估计和多机构协调。通过这项工作，我们旨在更轻松地使用硬件，并减少启动新的教育和研究项目所需的工程时间。

Prototyping and validating hardware-software components, sub-systems and systems within the intelligent transportation system-of-systems framework requires a modular yet flexible and open-access ecosystem. This work presents our attempt towards developing such a comprehensive research and education ecosystem, called AutoDRIVE, for synergistically prototyping, simulating and deploying cyber-physical solutions pertaining to autonomous driving as well as smart city management. AutoDRIVE features both software as well as hardware-in-the-loop testing interfaces with openly accessible scaled vehicle and infrastructure components. The ecosystem is compatible with a variety of development frameworks, and supports both single and multi-agent paradigms through local as well as distributed computing. Most critically, AutoDRIVE is intended to be modularly expandable to explore emergent technologies, and this work highlights various complementary features and capabilities of the proposed ecosystem by demonstrating four such deployment use-cases: (i) autonomous parking using probabilistic robotics approach for mapping, localization, path planning and control; (ii) behavioral cloning using computer vision and deep imitation learning; (iii) intersection traversal using vehicle-to-vehicle communication and deep reinforcement learning; and (iv) smart city management using vehicle-to-infrastructure communication and internet-of-things.

我们提出Dave Aquatic Virtual Environals（Dave），这是用于水下机器人，传感器和环境的开源仿真堆栈。传统的机器人模拟器并非旨在应对海洋环境带来的独特挑战，包括但不限于在空间和时间上变化的环境条件，受损或具有挑战性的感知以及在通常未探索的环境中数据的不可用。考虑到各种传感器和平台，对于不可避免地抵制更广泛采用的特定用例，车轮通常会重新发明。在现有模拟器的基础上，我们提供了一个框架，以帮助加快算法的开发和评估，否则这些算法需要在海上需要昂贵且耗时的操作。该框架包括基本的构建块（例如，新车，水跟踪多普勒速度记录仪，基于物理的多微型声纳）以及开发工具（例如，动态测深的产卵，洋流），使用户可以专注于方法论，而不是方法。比软件基础架构。我们通过示例场景，测深数据导入，数据检查的用户界面和操纵运动计划以及可视化来演示用法。

由于在道路驾驶实验的安全性，成本和实验控制问题，模拟器是驾驶的行为和交互研究的重要工具。最先进的模拟器使用昂贵的360度投影系统，以确保视觉保真度，完整的视野和浸入。然而，可以使用基于虚拟现实（VR）的可视界面可高效地实现类似的视觉保真度。我们展示了Dreyevr，这是一个基于开源VR的驾驶模拟器平台，设计了具有行为和互动研究优先事项的驾驶模拟器平台。 Dreyevr（读取“驱动程序”）是基于虚幻发动机和Carla自主车辆模拟器，并且具有眼睛跟踪等功能，功能驾驶头部显示器（HUD）和车辆音频，定制可定义路由和流量方案，实验测井，重播功能，以及与ROS的兼容性。我们描述了部署此模拟器的硬件低于$ 5000 $ USD，比市售的模拟器更便宜。最后，我们描述了如何利用Dreyevr在示例场景中回答交互研究问题。

There are many artificial intelligence algorithms for autonomous driving, but directly installing these algorithms on vehicles is unrealistic and expensive. At the same time, many of these algorithms need an environment to train and optimize. Simulation is a valuable and meaningful solution with training and testing functions, and it can say that simulation is a critical link in the autonomous driving world. There are also many different applications or systems of simulation from companies or academies such as SVL and Carla. These simulators flaunt that they have the closest real-world simulation, but their environment objects, such as pedestrians and other vehicles around the agent-vehicle, are already fixed programmed. They can only move along the pre-setting trajectory, or random numbers determine their movements. What is the situation when all environmental objects are also installed by Artificial Intelligence, or their behaviors are like real people or natural reactions of other drivers? This problem is a blind spot for most of the simulation applications, or these applications cannot be easy to solve this problem. The Neurorobotics Platform from the TUM team of Prof. Alois Knoll has the idea about "Engines" and "Transceiver Functions" to solve the multi-agents problem. This report will start with a little research on the Neurorobotics Platform and analyze the potential and possibility of developing a new simulator to achieve the true real-world simulation goal. Then based on the NRP-Core Platform, this initial development aims to construct an initial demo experiment. The consist of this report starts with the basic knowledge of NRP-Core and its installation, then focus on the explanation of the necessary components for a simulation experiment, at last, about the details of constructions for the autonomous driving system, which is integrated object detection and autonomous control.

Reliable and efficient validation technologies are critical for the recent development of multi-vehicle cooperation and vehicle-road-cloud integration. In this paper, we introduce our miniature experimental platform, Mixed Cloud Control Testbed (MCCT), developed based on a new notion of Mixed Digital Twin (mixedDT). Combining Mixed Reality with Digital Twin, mixedDT integrates the virtual and physical spaces into a mixed one, where physical entities coexist and interact with virtual entities via their digital counterparts. Under the framework of mixedDT, MCCT contains three major experimental platforms in the physical, virtual and mixed spaces respectively, and provides a unified access for various human-machine interfaces and external devices such as driving simulators. A cloud unit, where the mixed experimental platform is deployed, is responsible for fusing multi-platform information and assigning control instructions, contributing to synchronous operation and real-time cross-platform interaction. Particularly, MCCT allows for multi-vehicle coordination composed of different multi-source vehicles (\eg, physical vehicles, virtual vehicles and human-driven vehicles). Validations on vehicle platooning demonstrate the flexibility and scalability of MCCT.

Experiments using large numbers of miniature swarm robots are desirable to teach, study, and test multi-robot and swarm intelligence algorithms and their applications. To realize the full potential of a swarm robot, it should be capable of not only motion but also sensing, computing, communication, and power management modules with multiple options. Current swarm robot platforms developed for commercial and academic research purposes lack several of these critical attributes by focusing only on a few of these aspects. Therefore, in this paper, we propose the HeRoSwarm, a fully-capable swarm robot platform with open-source hardware and software support. The proposed robot hardware is a low-cost design with commercial off-the-shelf components that uniquely integrates multiple sensing, communication, and computing modalities with various power management capabilities into a tiny footprint. Moreover, our swarm robot with odometry capability with Robot Operating Systems (ROS) support is unique in its kind. This simple yet powerful swarm robot design has been extensively verified with different prototyping variants and multi-robot experimental demonstrations.

机器人模拟在开发智能地面车辆（IGV）期间提供了许多优势，例如在不同的情况下测试软件组件而无需完整的物理机器人。本文讨论了使用快速应用程序开发和Unity游戏引擎创建的3D仿真环境，以在移动机器人竞争中启用测试。我们的经验表明，模拟环境为竞争的软件开发做出了巨大贡献。模拟器还为机器人的硬件开发做出了贡献。

具有自动化和连通性的赋予，连接和自动化的车辆旨在成为合作驾驶自动化的革命性推动者。然而，骑士需要对周围环境的高保真感知信息，但从各种车载传感器以及车辆到所有的通信（v2x）通信中都可以昂贵。因此，通过具有成本效益的平台基于高保真传感器的真实感知信息对于启用与CDA相关的研究（例如合作决策或控制）至关重要。大多数针对CAVS的最先进的交通模拟研究都通过直接呼吁对象的内在属性来依赖情况 - 意识信息，这阻碍了CDA算法评估的可靠性和保真度。在这项研究中，\ textit {网络移动镜（CMM）}共模拟平台设计用于通过提供真实感知信息来启用CDA。 \ textit {cmm}共模拟平台可以通过高保真传感器感知系统和具有实时重建系统的网络世界模仿现实世界。具体而言，现实世界的模拟器主要负责模拟交通环境，传感器以及真实的感知过程。 Mirror-World Simulator负责重建对象，并将其信息作为模拟器的内在属性，以支持CD​​A算法的开发和评估。为了说明拟议的共模拟平台的功能，将基于路边的激光雷达的车辆感知系统原型作为研究案例。特定的流量环境和CDA任务是为实验设计的，其结果得到了证明和分析以显示平台的性能。

在不久的将来，自动驾驶的开发将变得更加复杂，因为这些车辆不仅会依靠自己的传感器，而且还与其他车辆和基础设施进行交流以合作和改善驾驶体验。为此，需要进行一些研究领域，例如机器人技术，沟通和控制，以实施未来的方法。但是，每个领域首先关注其组件的开发，而组件可能对整个系统产生的影响仅在后期考虑。在这项工作中，我们集成了机器人技术，通信和控制的仿真工具，即ROS2，Omnet ++和MATLAB来评估合作驾驶场景。可以利用该框架使用指定工具来开发各个组件，而最终评估可以在完整的情况下进行，从而可以模拟高级多机器人应用程序以进行合作驾驶。此外，它可以用于集成其他工具，因为集成以模块化方式完成。我们通过在合作自适应巡航控制（CACC）和ETSI ITS-G5通信体系结构下展示排量场景来展示该框架。此外，我们比较了理论分析和实际案例研究之间控制器性能的差异。

We designed and constructed an A-sized base autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), augmented with a stack of modular and extendable hardware and software, including autonomy, navigation, control and high fidelity simulation capabilities (A-size stands for the standard sonobuoy form factor, with a maximum diameter of 124 mm). Subsequently, we extended this base vehicle with a novel tuna-inspired morphing fin payload module (referred to as the Morpheus AUV), to achieve good directional stability and exceptional maneuverability; properties that are highly desirable for rigid hull AUVs, but are presently difficult to achieve because they impose contradictory requirements. The morphing fin payload allows the base AUV to dynamically change its stability-maneuverability qualities by using morphing fins, which can be deployed, deflected and retracted, as needed. The base vehicle and Morpheus AUV were both extensively field tested in-water in the Charles river, Massachusetts, USA; by conducting hundreds of hours of operations over a period of two years. The maneuvering capability of the Morpheus AUV was evaluated with and without the use of morphing fins to quantify the performance improvement. The Morpheus AUV was able to showcase an exceptional turning rate of around 25-35 deg/s. A maximum turn rate improvement of around 35% - 50% was gained through the use of morphing fins.

安全部署自动驾驶汽车（SDC）需要彻底模拟和现场测试。大多数测试技术考虑在仿真环境中的虚拟化SDC，而较少的努力旨在评估这些技术是否转移到并对物理现实世界的车辆有效。在本文中，我们在部署在物理小型车辆上的虚拟模拟对应物上时，我们利用驴车开源框架对SDC的测试测试。在我们的实证研究中，我们研究了虚拟和真实环境之间的行为和失败风险在大量损坏和对抗的环境中的可转移性。虽然大量测试结果在虚拟和物理环境之间进行转移，但我们还确定了有助于虚拟和物理世界之间的现实差距的关键缺点，威胁到应用于物理SDC时现有的测试解决方案的潜力。

由于需要快速原型制作和广泛的测试，模拟在自主驾驶中的作用变得越来越重要。基于物理的模拟使用涉及多个利益和优势，以合理的成本消除了对原型，驱动因素和脆弱道路使用者的风险。但是，有两个主要局限性。首先，众所周知的现实差距是指现实与模拟之间的差异，这阻止了模拟自主驾驶体验实现有效的现实性能。其次，缺乏有关真实代理商的行为的经验知识，包括备用驾驶员或乘客以及其他道路使用者，例如车辆，行人或骑自行车的人。代理仿真通常是根据实际数据进行确定性，随机概率或生成的预编程的，但它不代表与特定模拟方案相互作用的真实试剂的行为。在本文中，我们提出了一个初步框架，以实现真实试剂与模拟环境（包括自动驾驶汽车）之间的实时互动，并从多个视图中从模拟传感器数据中生成合成序列，这些视图可用于培训依赖行为模型的预测系统。我们的方法将沉浸式的虚拟现实和人类运动捕获系统与Carla模拟器进行自主驾驶。我们描述了提出的硬件和软件体系结构，并讨论所谓的行为差距或存在。我们提出了支持这种方法的潜力并讨论未来步骤的初步但有希望的结果。

The last decade witnessed increasingly rapid progress in self-driving vehicle technology, mainly backed up by advances in the area of deep learning and artificial intelligence. The objective of this paper is to survey the current state-of-the-art on deep learning technologies used in autonomous driving. We start by presenting AI-based self-driving architectures, convolutional and recurrent neural networks, as well as the deep reinforcement learning paradigm. These methodologies form a base for the surveyed driving scene perception, path planning, behavior arbitration and motion control algorithms. We investigate both the modular perception-planning-action pipeline, where each module is built using deep learning methods, as well as End2End systems, which directly map sensory information to steering commands. Additionally, we tackle current challenges encountered in designing AI architectures for autonomous driving, such as their safety, training data sources and computational hardware. The comparison presented in this survey helps to gain insight into the strengths and limitations of deep learning and AI approaches for autonomous driving and assist with design choices. 1

Pioneers of autonomous vehicles (AVs) promised to revolutionize the driving experience and driving safety. However, milestones in AVs have materialized slower than forecast. Two culprits are (1) the lack of verifiability of proposed state-of-the-art AV components, and (2) stagnation of pursuing next-level evaluations, e.g., vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) and multi-agent collaboration. In part, progress has been hampered by: the large volume of software in AVs, the multiple disparate conventions, the difficulty of testing across datasets and simulators, and the inflexibility of state-of-the-art AV components. To address these challenges, we present AVstack, an open-source, reconfigurable software platform for AV design, implementation, test, and analysis. AVstack solves the validation problem by enabling first-of-a-kind trade studies on datasets and physics-based simulators. AVstack solves the stagnation problem as a reconfigurable AV platform built on dozens of open-source AV components in a high-level programming language. We demonstrate the power of AVstack through longitudinal testing across multiple benchmark datasets and V2I-collaboration case studies that explore trade-offs of designing multi-sensor, multi-agent algorithms.

本文介绍了我们的网络物理移动实验室（CPM实验室）。它是网络和自治车辆的开源开发环境，专注于网络决策，轨迹规划和控制。 CPM实验室主持20个物理模型规模车辆（{\ mu}汽车），我们可以通过无限制的模拟车辆无缝扩展。代码和施工计划是公开的，以实现重建CPM实验室。我们的四层架构使得能够在模拟中和实验中无缝使用相同的软件，而无需进一步的适应。基于数据分发服务（DDS）的中间件允许以无缝方式在实验期间调整车辆数量。中间件还负责在逻辑执行时间方法后同步所有实体，以实现实验的确定性和再现性。这种方法使CPM实验室成为网络决策算法快速功能原型的独特平台。 CPM实验室允许研究人员以及来自不同学科的学生，以了解他们发展成为现实的想法。我们使用两个示例实验展示其能力。我们正在通过WebInterface进行远程访问CPM实验室。