karl. - A Research Vehicle for Automated and Connected Driving

TL;DR

The paper introduces 'karl.', a versatile research vehicle designed for testing and validating automated and connected driving systems in real-world conditions, addressing the gap in independent access to L4-capable vehicles.

Contribution

It details the design, technical choices, and capabilities of 'karl.', a new research vehicle that enables independent research and validation in automated and connected driving.

Findings

'karl.' supports real-world testing of L4 autonomous driving systems.

It facilitates data collection and sharing for research purposes.

The platform enhances independent research capabilities in automated driving.

Abstract

As highly automated driving is transitioning from single-vehicle closed-access testing to commercial deployments of public ride-hailing in selected areas (e.g., Waymo), automated driving and connected cooperative intelligent transport systems (C-ITS) remain active fields of research. Even though simulation is omnipresent in the development and validation life cycle of automated and connected driving technology, the complex nature of public road traffic and software that masters it still requires real-world integration and testing with actual vehicles. Dedicated vehicles for research and development allow testing and validation of software and hardware components under real-world conditions early on. They also enable collecting and publishing real-world datasets that let others conduct research without vehicle access, and support early demonstration of futuristic use cases. In this paper, we present karl., our new research vehicle for automated and connected driving. Apart from major corporations, few institutions worldwide have access to their own L4-capable research vehicles, restricting their ability to carry out independent research. This paper aims to help bridge that gap by sharing the reasoning, design choices, and technical details that went into making karl. a flexible and powerful platform for research, engineering, and validation in the context of automated and connected driving. More impressions of karl. are available at https://karl.ac.