Oxford University develops a test driving movie, self-driving car "RobotCar UK" using GPS navigation and laser guidance released

By John Cairns, based in Oxford UK.

Google almost completed a self-driving car (automatic driving car) in March 2012By August the same yearRunning under 500,000 km with no accidentWe are testing certainly and surely, but in the UKOxford UniversityHas produced a self-driving car "RobotCar UK" and its testing has started.

RobotCar UK
http://mrg.robots.ox.ac.uk/robotcar/


This RobotCar UK is produced by Oxford University Mobile Robotics Engineering Group,EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council: Research Council of Engineering and Physics)YaNissan Motor,Guidance Navigation Limited(A company developing navigation and position measurement technology),MIRA(A consulting company of engineering technology) is sponsored as a sponsor.

Production team members


car isNissan Reefuse.



To determine the position of the car and the driving route, use the GPS navigation system and laser guidance and mapping with the 3D laser mounted on the roof part. Data can be downloaded from a centralized system on passing vehicles or the Internet using 3G / 4G lines, so it is not necessary to have all the data in advance in the car.

By John Cairns, based in Oxford UK.

The appearance of the car looks like this.

RobotCar UK - Video Portrait - YouTube


In addition to the laser equipment for guidance being installed on the roof, there is not much changed part.


Interior is almost normal.


The control system itself is operating on the iPad.

RobotCar UK - Autonomous Start Up Using iPad - Full Sequence - YouTube


First unlock the iPad


Next I will launch the application


Enter the passcode ......


Set up auto drive.


The system is ready for auto drive.


The driver puts the gear in "D" and removes the hand brake (side brake) in a state, and stands by stepping on the foot brake.


The preparation of the auto drive is completed.


As the message indicating preparation completion appears on the iPad, tap "OK" and release the foot brake, the car started to move freely by auto drive.



Here is the movie taken with the in-vehicle camera and the camera from the outside after actually seeing how it started running with this auto drive.

RobotCar UK - Control And Sensing Enabling Autonomous Driving - YouTube


Slow driving that seems to be convincing if it is said to be the scenery during driving practice at the driving school



Detecting pedestrian comes out on the road, stop slowly.



"Drivers are not doing", the driver raises both hands to appeal.


In the auto drive system, it checks with the data that has been run in advance, and detects whether there is no new obstacle.

RobotCar UK - Experience Based Navigation - YouTube


The left side is the live image, the right side is the data when traveling in the past.


However, live video can not be captured by the camera at night, so laser assistance assistance is also done.


Static information is mapped like this.

RobotCar UK - Driving Through Semantic Prior Map And Displaying Dynamic Objects - YouTube


Since the position of the driving lane and the intersection is basically immovable, you can create accurate things in advance.



This is used in conjunction with dynamic fault detection.

RobotCar UK - Dynamic Obstacle Detection - YouTube


For example, how to move oncoming vehicles, motorcycles, bicycles, pedestrians is dynamically detected by the laser scanner. The system scans 13 times a second, covering the range of 85 ° and 50 m in front of the car.



BBC actually carries on the test run.

Test DRIVING in the Oxford Self Driving Robot Car - YouTube


It is a different approach from Google, but I feel that the days when self-driving cars are becoming more popular are coming.