Turning a Regular Car into an Autonomous Vehicle
3A team of students at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) built a platform that will turn a traditional car into an autonomous vehicle. Using this platform, the team was able to turn a 4x4, off-road-style vehicle into a fully autonomous vehicle that was able to accurately and safely chart and follow a path from a starting point to a target destination, avoiding obstacles along the way. The video shows the car’s perspective as it driverlessly moves through a parking garage. Learn more at wpi.edu/+ece
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A student team built a platform that will turn a traditional vehicle into an autonomous vehicle. Here's a demonstration of their car plotting and navigating a path fully autonomously. The picture on the left is a point cloud -- a set of data points produced by 3D scanners set up on the vehicle. This is what the autonomous car "sees". The line in the center of the image is the vehicle's path. On the right, you see a video stream from a camera strapped to the vehicle. You're getting the vehicle's perspective as it maneuvers driverlessly through a parking garage.
The students created a modular framework that can be used with sensors, motors, a high-performance computer module and software code to retrofit any ground vehicle to make it drive autonomously. Alex Wyglinski, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering & Robotics Engineering said, "It is impressive that these students built something that is not hardcoded into the vehicle itself. The solution can be transformed to other vehicular platforms."
Footage supplied by the Autonomous Baja Vehicle Team
Produced by Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Learn more at wpi.edu/+ece