Intelligent and Autonomous Vehicles

CARMEN testbed

CARMEN is a Citroën C5 used for research on robotic perception. This testbed allows tests on a variety of aspects, including robust and reliable localization, local dynamic maps, obstacle detection, and the use of digital maps.

Instruments

CARMEN is equipped with the following:

• an HDL-64E Velodyne
• a Novatel SPAN-CPT for localization (RTK enabled)
• an Ibeo Alasca XT front Lidar
• a 77GHz AC20 front TRW
• a Mobileye C2-270 (measurement of safety distance, detection of white lines and obstacles)
• several vision systems (stereovision, Infrared camera, TOF cameras)
• driver observation systems (FaceLab, SmartEye and SMI glasses)
• full access to the car's CAN bus

DYNA - vehicle dynamics

DYNA is the testbed devoted to vehicle dynamics. The car is equipped with the following sensors:

• 4 Kistler RoaDyn measuring wheels
• a Corrsys Datron Correvit
• a Crossbow IMU VG700AB
• 4 Corrsys height sensors
• an Ibeo LUX-8L front Lidar
• a real-time acquisition system (2kHz data acquisition)
• an embedded computer with a high data-processing capacity

Additional sensors including GPS receivers and cameras can be installed according to needs of the project.

All the car's instrumentation was put in place by the Lab's technical staff:

• the electrical power supply and the sensors were installed locally
• the low-level software uses a real-time Xenomai Linux to guarantee the synchronisation and timestamping of data
• the high-level software, including ADAS modules and project applications, use the PACPUS framework

IRIS (IRIS is a Robotized Intelligent System)

IRIS is one of Heudiasyc's autonomous cars, acquired in 2012 as part of the Robotex project.

APAChE

APAChE (vehicle Autonome Partenaire de Conduite) is an autonomous vehicle based on the Renault Zoë. Heudiasyc has two of these, as part of the Robotex project.

APAChE, autonomous car and driving partner

The 2 APAChE cars are part of the ROBOTEX project and are fully controllable by computer. The embedded technology allows the car to be controlled by Electronic Control Units (ECUs) developed in the Lab. In particular, a cooperative mode has been developed to transform the vehicle into a driving partner for ensuring the safety of its passengers.

The vehicles are equipped with instrumentation for use in experiments:

• front and rear multi-layer Lidars
• 3 front 24 GHz radars
• on-board cameras
• GNSS localization systems
• 802.11p radio modems for V2V and V2I communications

VILAD

"Vehicle In the Loop testbed for Autonomous Driving" is a 4WD hub for testing robot cars. The four dynamometers emulate the road surface in the vehicle's acceleration and braking phases, and an automotive simulator feeds sensor data and dynamics into the control algorithms.

VILAD, Vehicle In the Loop testbed for Autonomous Driving

The VILAD testbed was designed for experimenting repeatable and faulty scenarios with autonomous cars. The surroundings and vehicle dynamics are simulated and the road grip is reproduced by a bi-directional 4WD testbed.

VILAD is able to test the complete electronic architecture of the vehicle, together with the robotics tasks. Since all the inputs into control algorithms are provided just like in a real situation, VILAD offers a valuable means of diagnosing and improving a robot's behaviour before actually putting it on a test track.

The vehicles are equipped with instrumentation for use in experiments:

• front and rear multi-layer Lidars
• 3 front 24 GHz radars
• on-board cameras
• GNSS localization systems
• 802.11p radio modems for V2V and V2I communications