Principal Investigator

John Dolan

Status

Active

Start Date

July 1, 2024

End Date

June 30, 2025

Project Type

Student Project Course/Capstone

Grant Program

US DOT BIL, Safety21, 2023 - 2028 (4811)

Grant Cycle

Safety21 : 24-25

Visibility

Public

Abstract

This proposal is for equipment funding for an F1Tenth Autonomous Racing Course that was offered for the first and second times at Carnegie Mellon University respectively in Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 by the PI. The course was developed by fellow Safety21 UTC member Prof. Rahul Mangharam and team at the University of Pennsylvania. It gives students a strong foundation in the full autonomous driving software stack and stresses safe maneuvering at high speeds among multiple surrounding vehicles. Participants in and graduates from the course at Penn and other universities have competed in F1Tenth race competitions at major robotics and transportation conferences including ICRA, IROS, and the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium and gone on to jobs in the intelligent transportation industry. The course therefore has high impact in the area of intelligent transportation workforce development. Furthermore, the technologies and techniques learned for maneuvering safely at high speeds have application to safety at the typically lower speeds of highway and city driving, and to the quick reactions needed to respond safely to emergency situations in conventional driving.

The F23 CMU offering of the course had six 4-person or 3-person teams for a total of 22 students. Each team needed to have an RC car and the accompanying autonomy retrofit equipment. In F23, Prof. Mangharam was able to lend me six platforms from Penn, which I returned to him in December 2023 so that he could use them in teaching the course during S24 at Penn. Using UTC funds from my prior 2023-24 "Equipment for F1Tenth Autonomous Racing Capstone Course" project, I was able to buy 7 platforms that we are assembling and will use in the S24 offering of the course. The S24 enrollment is currently 28 with 30 students on the waitlist, so I would like to be able to buy four more platforms for future course offerings. The rough cost per platform is $5K,  for a total of $20K. I have added $3K for spare parts, so the total before overhead is $23K. Adding overhead, the total becomes $35K.

Prof. Mangharam and I have been cooperating and coordinating closely in the creation of the CMU version of the course, and we worked together to provide a well-received demo of F1Tenth autonomous racing at the annual UTC Consortium at Mill 19 in November 2023. The current proposal should be viewed as being linked with Prof. Mangharam's 2024-25 "F1Tenth Autonomous Racing Course and Competition" proposal. The proposals have the identical goals of exposing students to autonomous driving technology and safety practices and expanding the intelligent transportation workforce. Furthermore and finally, Prof. Mangharam and I have plans to use our experiences in teaching the course at Penn and CMU to write one or more articles encouraging other educators and institutions to use and adapt the course to further these same goals.

This is not a research project, so nothing is entered under TRID below. No deployment partner is listed because it is a capstone course equipment request.    

Description

Timeline

Strategic Description / RD&T

This proposal addresses the “Zero Fatalities” Grand Challenge (Ch. 1, p. 3) and with two of its desired outcomes (Ch. 2, p. 16): 1) “People no longer accept a high risk of fatality or serious injury as a cost of mobility.” 2) Vehicle...designs incorporate proven, active and passive safety features that protect vehicle occupants and non-occupants.” It aligns with the US DOT RD&T primary purpose of “Promoting safety” (Ch. 1, p. 5) and with the US DOT strategic goals of “Safety” and “Transformation” (Ch. 1, pp. 5-6). Each of these strategic goals is dealt with separately below.

Safety: The proposal addresses one of this goal’s research priorities: Data-Driven System Safety (Ch. 2, p. 17, Table 3. Under the Safety Technology heading of Data-Driven System Safety, it “Leverage[s] innovative technologies to monitor, predict, and plan ways to reduce injuries and fatalities among the transportation workforce and traveling public" (Ch. 2, p. 19).

Transformation: The proposal addresses one of this goal’s research priorities: New and Novel Technologies (Ch. 2, p. 50, Table 6). Under the Automation heading of this priority, it “Conduct[s] research to develop an effective and efficient safety assessment framework for automated systems across all modes of transportation” and “Develop[s] best practices for safe interaction of automated roadway vehicles with existing vehicles, … pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists” (Ch. 2, p. 60).

Deployment Plan

Sept. 30, 2024: Receipt, assembly, and testing of the four new platforms in time for the probable third offering of the F1Tenth course at CMU in F24.
Dec. 31, 2024: Third offering of the F1Tenth course will be concluded. The RC car + autonomy equipment will have been used by up to eleven teams to compete in multiple races during the course of the semester.
Mar. 31, 2025: Interested teams will continue to test in preparation for upcoming F1Tenth competition(s).
June 30, 2025: Interested teams will have competed at ICRA in May 2025 or other conference-associated F1Tenth competitions.

Expected Outcomes/Impacts

* Training of up to 44 students (assuming one course per year) or 88 students (assuming two courses per year) each year in autonomous racing techniques that are applicable to autonomous driving safety.
* Addition of these students to the intelligent transportation workforce or graduate student population.

Expected Outputs

* Development of safe collision-avoidance techniques applicable to emergency highway and urban situations in conventional driving. 
* Improved vehicle dynamics modeling (especially tire modeling and online system identification) applicable to safe autonomous driving maneuvers.

TRID

N/A.

Individuals Involved

Email	Name	Affiliation	Role	Position
jdolan@andrew.cmu.edu	Dolan, John	Carnegie Mellon University	PI	Faculty - Research/Systems

Budget

Amount of UTC Funds Awarded

$35029.00

Total Project Budget (from all funding sources)

$70058.00

Documents

Type	Name	Uploaded
Data Management Plan	Equipment_for_F1Tenth_Autonomous_Racing_Capstone_Course_Data_Management_Plan.pdf	April 20, 2024, 10:28 a.m.

Match Sources

No match sources!

Partners

No partners!