The class project will be a semester-long group activity that will advance the state of the art in autonomy. The goal is to implement a full AV system with closed-loop, reactive behaviors and assess the safety and performance of your system.

While you may work in simulation, you have the opportunity to implement you project on a real-world test vehicle. The platform we will provide is the Polaris GEM electric vehicle from AutonomousStuff. The vehicle is outfitted with a camera, LIDAR, RADAR, IMU, GPS, and drive-by-wire system. We have built several research-prototype software modules on this vehicle for pedestrian detection, lane tracking, and vehicle control for lane following. You will have access to all this software. You will also have access to our testing facility, which consists of indoor and outdoor tracks.

You may read more about the system from this manuscript:
Online monitoring for safe pedestrian-vehicle interactions, by Peter Du, Zhe Huang, Tianqi Liu, Ke Xu, Qichao Gao, Hussein Sibai, Katherine Driggs-Campbell, Sayan Mitra, ITSC 2019.

The goal of your project is to improve the overall system or one of the modules with respect to performance and safety. Specifically, you may:

• Replace an existing module/algorithm with one that maintains the same input/output specifications. Experiments and analysis should then be conducted to show improved performance and safety.
• Add an existing algorithm or capability to the existing system. Experiments should then be conducted to show improved safety and  capability.
• Replace one or more existing module such that aggregate input/output specifications are maintained. Experiments and analysis should then be conducted to show maintained end-to-end performance, and improved safety.

Summary of awesome projects from Spring and Fall 2020:

Detailed presentations recordings are available here and here.

Grade breakdown

The team project is worth  35% of your grade. The breakdown of the grades is below. For the project pitches and the final presentations, asynchronous students must send a recording of their presentation to the course staff the day before.

Project Pitches (5%)

In class, you’ll be giving a high-level pitch of what you would like to focus on for your project. You will primarily be graded on effort and timing.

Milestone report (10%)

One page report to update course staff on the progression of your project. Guidelines and rubric can be found here.

Final Presentation (25%)

In the last full week of class, you will be giving a ~10 minute presentation on what you’ve accomplished. You will be graded by your peers and by the instructors. Guidelines and rubric can be found here.

Final REport (50%)

In place of a final, you will be submitting a written report outlining your project goals, methods, and evaluation of your efforts. Guidelines and rubric can be found here.

IEEE Conference template can be found here.

Demo Video (10%)

In addition to your final report, you must submit a short video showing the results of your project. You will be graded on how well the video demonstrates your results (5%) and on video quality and professionalism (5%).