Virtual simulation environment of an autonomous A-EVE vehicle

Abstract

The base condition which has to be met by autonomous cars is the guaranteed safety of passengers and other participants. Therefore, it is necessary to intensively test devices and algorithms for autonomous driving, what generates high costs. In order to reduce costs, it is necessary to perform as many tests as possible in a virtual environment with the use of simulators. The article describes the virtual simulation environment of an experimental autonomous vehicle called A-EVE. The GAZEBO simulator was used to implement the dynamic and kinematic model and sensors of the A-EVE vehicle. The use of the virtual GAZEBO environment enables rapid prototyping and testing of new functionalities of the A-EVE vehicle and the reduction of the number of practical experiments to the necessary minimum.