Design and Implementation of an Open-Source Driving Simulator for Cooperative Driving Functions

Gaining hands-on experience in the development of cooperative driving functions requires either the means to conduct extensive field operational tests or, more realistically, a driving simulator. While there are many driving simulators available, they often focus on a different use case (e.g., racing instead of urban driving), need specialized hardware, or contain closed-source components (and therefore are limiting options for full reproducibility). There is thus a real need for a driving simulator for cooperative driving that works with affordable hardware and is fully open source.

Goals of the thesis

This thesis can focus on any of a number of different aspects of designing and implementing such a driving simulator, including:

• Peripherals (e.g., steering wheel, displays, VR headset)
• Architecture (e.g., extensibility, modularity, scalability)
• Visualization (e.g., 3D models, rendering)
• User interface (e.g., of the simulator, of the cooperative driving functions)
• Sound (e.g., engine noise, notifications)
• Physics engine (e.g., vehicle dynamics, collision detection)
• Traffic simulation (e.g., traffic lights, pedestrians, other vehicles)

Requirements

Depending on the focus of the thesis, different requirements apply.

Further reading

• https://carla.org/
  • https://carla.readthedocs.io/projects/ros-bridge/en/latest/carla_manual_control/
• https://cyberbotics.com/
  • https://www.cyberbotics.com/doc/automobile/village-center
• http://www.speed-dreams.org/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sim_racing

Contact

• C. Sommer