MRI: Development of an Autonomous, Connected and Data-Driven Vehicle for Multi-Disciplinary Research and Project-Based Learning

Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester MA

Investigators

Abstract

This project, developing a connected and autonomous vehicle, aims to create WAVE, a shared 'live' testbed/platform for faculty and students to investigate many aspects of the driveless car. Involving research, experiments, and data collection, these aspects include: safety, reliability, performance, connectivity, interaction, and social impacts. Similar to the history of wireless communications research over the past decade, researchers often utilized SDR platforms to prototype and evaluate their proposed communication systems. As connected and autonomous cars hit the road in the future, there will be many issues. A prototype vehicle becomes absolutely necessary for these research projects to collect data, conduct experiments, and prove concepts. The 'live' testbed will be shared by faculty and students across the university to carry out their research and educational missions. A large number of research activities and student projects will utilize this instrument, which will serve the dual purposes of enabling multidisciplinary research and project-based learning. The instrument will enable multidisciplinary research activities that involve, but are not limited to, computer vision and machine learning, V2V and V2I communications, optimal controls and reliability, big data analysis, human-robot interactions, driver behavior and human factors, social impacts and autonomous vehicle policies. Although a fully autonomous car is not currently commercially available, key components such as sensors, processing platforms, and drive-by-wire devices can readily be integrated to build a prototype. The instrument development team consists of experts from multiple fields, including robotics, electrical, and mechanical engineering, as well as computer science. The main efforts not only includes the hardware/sensors installation, but also the software development for vehicle control, data processing, and path planning. Comparing to the autonomous vehicle prototypes in the literature, the proposed WAVE testbed exhibits three new properties. It will be a 1. Connected vehicle equipped with DSRC (Dedicated Short Range Communications) modules that can evaluate V2V (Vehicle-to Vehicle) and V2I (Vehicle to Infrastructure) active-safety systems; 2. Data-driven platform that will collect big data from roads, vehicles, and drivers; the data will be shared openly with the research community; 3. Real-world tool for university faculty to develop curriculum for project-based learning which will enhance student experience through undergraduate research.