TUM Teleoperation: Open Source Software for Remote Driving and Assistance of Automated Vehicles

TL;DR

This paper introduces an open source teleoperation software stack that enables remote driving and assistance for automated vehicles, supporting testing, development, and user studies in real-world and simulated environments.

Contribution

It presents a modular, open source teleoperation system that integrates with automated driving software and real vehicles, filling a gap in existing tools.

Findings

Demonstrated low latency in simulation and real-world testing.

Achieved seamless integration with Autoware and vehicle platforms.

Provided a flexible, extendable architecture for teleoperation applications.

Abstract

Teleoperation is a key enabler for future mobility, supporting Automated Vehicles in rare and complex scenarios beyond the capabilities of their automation. Despite ongoing research, no open source software currently combines Remote Driving, e.g., via steering wheel and pedals, Remote Assistance through high-level interaction with automated driving software modules, and integration with a real-world vehicle for practical testing. To address this gap, we present a modular, open source teleoperation software stack that can interact with an automated driving software, e.g., Autoware, enabling Remote Assistance and Remote Driving. The software featuresstandardized interfaces for seamless integration with various real-world and simulation platforms, while allowing for flexible design of the human-machine interface. The system is designed for modularity and ease of extension, serving as a foundation for collaborative development on individual software components as well as realistic testing and user studies. To demonstrate the applicability of our software, we evaluated the latency and performance of different vehicle platforms in simulation and real-world. The source code is available on GitHub