X-CAR: An Experimental Vehicle Platform for Connected Autonomy Research

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) promise a future with safer, cleaner, more efficient, and more reliable transportation. However, the current approach to autonomy has focused on building small, disparate intelligences that are closed off to the rest of the world. Vehicle connectivity has been proposed as a solution, relying on a vision of the future where a mix of connected autonomous and human–driven vehicles populate the road. Developed by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) as a reusable, extensible platform for controlling connected autonomous vehicles (CAVs), the CARMA Platform, is one of the technologies enabling this connected future. Nevertheless, the adoption of CARMA has been slow, with one contributing factor being the limited, expensive, and relatively old vehicle configurations that are officially supported. To alleviate this problem, we propose the eXperimental vehicle platform for Connected Autonomy Research (X-CAR). By implementing the CARMA Platform on more-affordable, high-quality hardware, X-CAR aims to increase the versatility of the FHWA platform and facilitate its adoption for research and development into connected driving automation.

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) promise a future with a safer, cleaner, more efficient, and more reliable transportation system [1], [2]. At high penetration rates, they can reduce traffic accident fatalities and pedestrian collisions, lower fuel consumption, utilize efficient routes, and reduce traffic congestion [3], [4], [5]. However, the current approach to autonomy has focused on building small, disparate intelligences that are closed off to the rest of the world. In this way, even if several AVs are traveling in the same environment at the same time, they each have to carry expensive sensing, navigation, and processing hardware, and, lacking coordination with other road users, they may still get into accidents. Vehicle connectivity has been proposed as a solution, relying on a vision of the future where a mix of connected autonomous and human–driven vehicles populate the road. Connectivity enables vehicles to perceive beyond the field of view (FoV) of their sensors, coordinate with other vehicles, and negotiate with other road users [1].