Open-Source Based and ETSI Compliant Cooperative, Connected, and Automated Mini-Cars

TL;DR

This paper presents a cost-effective, open-source, ETSI-compliant mini-car platform for testing cooperative, connected, and automated vehicle algorithms, demonstrated through a collision warning case study.

Contribution

It introduces a scaled mini-car platform with open-source hardware and software, enabling practical testing of cooperative algorithms without high costs.

Findings

Successful implementation of a Day-1 intersection collision warning system

Platform demonstrates feasibility for real-world cooperative vehicle testing

Open-source approach facilitates accessible research and development

Abstract

The automotive sector is following a revolutionary path from vehicles controlled by humans to vehicles that will be fully automated, fully connected, and ultimately fully cooperative. Along this road, new cooperative algorithms and protocols will be designed and field tested, which represents a great challenge in terms of costs. In this context, in particular, moving from simulations to practical experiments requires huge investments that are not always affordable and may become a barrier in some cases. To solve this issue and provide the community with an intermediate step, we here propose the use of 1:10 scaled cooperative, autonomous, and connected mini-cars. The mini-car is equipped with a Jetson Orin board running the open Robot Operating System 2 (ROS2), sensors for autonomous operations, and a Raspberry Pi board for connectivity mounting the open source Open Stack for Car (OScar). A key aspect of the proposal is the use of OScar, which implements a full ETSI cooperative-intelligent transport systems (C-ITS) compliant stack. The feasibility and potential of the proposed platform is here demonstrated through the implementation of a case study where the Day-1 intersection collision warning (ICW) application is implemented and validated.