Autonomous driving

Logo Carolo Cup Technical University of Braunschweig

itmov:ES Project Team 2021 and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Marchthaler

Autonomous driving is a hot topic not only for vehicle manufacturers but also for the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology.

In the Bachelor's program in Computer Engineering and in the Master's program in Applied Computer Science, topics on autonomous driving are taught in their respective specializations in Autonomous Systems.

A team of students has already been working on autonomous driving for several semesters. Since autonomous driving with real vehicles in road traffic is very difficult for legal reasons, the student team uses model vehicles.

The model vehicles are 1:10 scale and are equipped with a Teensy microcontroller and a Jetson TX2 embedded computer board. Both boards analyze data from a video camera with a fisheye lens and various sensors at intervals of a few milliseconds. Acceleration sensors provide information about the vehicle dynamics, and lidar and radar sensors detect obstacles. This is used to generate a realistic mathematical description of the vehicle's surroundings. The steering angle and vehicle speed are controlled using the curvature of the trajectory. The software development is implemented using the open-source Robot Operating System and the programming languages Python and C++.

Project team itmov:ES

To measure the project progress and the acquired knowledge with other student teams, the student project team of the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology regularly participates in the Carolo Cup under the name itmov:ES.

The Carolo Cup is an international student competition that offers student teams a platform for the design and implementation of automated RC cars on a scale of 1:10. The annual cup is organized by the TU Braunschweig. The challenge is to implement state-of-the-art algorithmic solutions for vehicle control and environment perception based on a realistic application scenario. The teams present their solutions in front of a jury from science and industry, while international teams from different universities and colleges compete against each other.

The Carolo Cup offer participating teams two difficulty levels. The Basic Cup for beginner teams and the Master Cup for advanced project teams.