RADAR Modeling For Autonomous Vehicle Simulation Environment using Open Source

Abstract

Advancement in modern technology has brought with it an advent of increased interest in self-driving. The rapid growth in interest has caused a surge in the development of autonomous vehicles which in turn brought with itself a few challenges. To overcome these new challenges, automotive companies are forced to invest heavily in the research and development of autonomous vehicles. To overcome this challenge, simulations are a great tool in any arsenal that’s inclined towards making progress towards a self-driving autonomous future. There is a massive growth in the amount of computing power in today’s world and with the help of the same computing power, simulations will help test and simulate scenarios to have real time results. However, the challenge does not end here, there is a much bigger hurdle caused by the growing complexities of modelling a complete simulation environment. This thesis focuses on providing a solution for modelling a RADAR sensor for a simulation environment. This research presents a RADAR modeling technique suitable for autonomous vehicle simulation environment using open-source utilities. This study proposes to customize an onboard LiDAR model to the specification of a desired RADAR field of view, resolution, and range and then utilizes a density-based clustering algorithm to generate the RADAR output on an open-source graphical engine such as Unreal Engine (UE). High fidelity RADAR models have recently been developed for proprietary simulation platforms such as MATLAB under its automated driving toolbox. However, open-source RADAR models for open-source simulation platform such as UE are not available. This research focuses on developing a RADAR model on UE using blueprint visual scripting for off-road vehicles. The model discussed in the thesis uses 3D pointcloud data generated from the simulation environment and then clipping the data according to the FOV of the RADAR specification, it clusters the points generated from an object using DBSCAN. The model gives the distance and azimuth to the object from the RADAR sensor in 2D. This model offers the developers a base to build upon and help them develop and test autonomous control algorithms requiring RADAR sensor data. Preliminary simulation results show promise for the proposed RADAR model.