Development of an Open-source Educational and Research Platform for Autonomous Cars

Technological innovation in recent years is called "The Fourth Industrial Revolution." As a typical example, the development of autonomous driving is thriving in the world. However, if cars are automated, there is a problem that it is necessary to secure people who can technically deal with autonomous cars in order for us to coexist fully with the autonomous cars. Furthermore, in Japan, it is difficult to provide the cars continuingly, because the shortage of IT personnel is a serious problem. In this study, the authors developed a hardware platform for research and education usage to assist autonomous driving technologies. The platform is a one-tenth size model car that mainly consists of ordinary consumer electronics such as Raspberry Pi and is also an open source. It is not only affordable but also easy-to-modify by everyone. Therefore, the hurdles to learn autonomous driving technologies are very low. In addition, the platform isn't a general robot like LEGO MINDSTORMS, because it is a model very similar to a car and is a robot specialized in autonomous driving technologies. We made three experiments to verify functions of sensors and actuators attached to the model car. As the results, we confirmed that the car can be used as the platform without any big errors.