Autonomous Vehicle Control: Teaching Tool and Simulation

This Research to Practice Category Full Paper presents a teaching tool for users to design and practice different features and parameters of the longitudinal control of autonomous vehicles. The proposed platform is composed of four modules: vision-based perception, decision-making, speed control and simulation. The teaching tool provides the ability for users to work with individual modules and then integrate these modules to visualize their effect on the vehicle performance in simulation. Each module has its own MATLAB graphical user interface for users to simplify the learning procedure and intuitively update system parameters. The output of the teaching tool, autonomous vehicle longitudinal control, is visualized using the MATLAB 3D World Simulator. The proposed teaching tool was presented in a fourth-year engineering control system class and the students’ feedback was used to improve the teaching tool for a better learning experience.