Autonomous Car

This project is the simulator implemented for my master's thesis: Path Planning and Path Following for an Autonomous Car.

It is written in C# with the XNA game engine using Farseer Physics. This project was developed using Visual Studio 2010 with Service Pack 1. You must also have XNA Game Studio 4.0 in order to compile and run the simulation.

Getting Started with the Simulator

The simulator runs a mission described by a JSON mission file located in the Missions folder, which already includes some example mission files. The mission file defines a start pose, a goal pose, and an environment of obstacles.

Once the simulator is fired up, a mission needs to be loaded. Hit Escape to open the simulator console, then type:

load <mission file>

This mission file will be searched for in the Missions directory. Leave off the .json extension. For example, use the following console command to load the default.json mission file:

load default

Hit Escape again to close the simulator console. Once a mission is loaded, the path planner will automatically start searching for a path. Once a path is found, it will be drawn in the environment. The smoother will then iteratively smooth the discovered path, updating the scene at each iteration.

Once a path has been discovered and smoothed, hit Return to start the path follower. The path follower will then drive the vehicle along the path to the goal pose, where it will stop and complete the mission.

There are many options used to control the camera, the objects drawn in the scene, and other parameters. These options are set using keys on the keyboard and are described in the following section.

Key Bindings

Objects Drawn in the Scene

C: Draw 3D car
G: Draw distance field
V: Draw Voronoi field
H: Draw heuristic value grid
B: Draw Hybrid A* search tree
Shift+B: Draw search tree while searching
P: Draw discovered path
L: Draw smoothed path
O: Draw velocity profile
F: Draw controller's front path
Home: Draw start pose
End: Draw goal pose
Comma: Slow down searching (when Shift+B option is active)
Period: Slow down smoothing

Camera

These keys are on the number row, not the numpad.

1: Choose birds-eye camera
2: Choose chase camera
3: Choose side-view camera
4: Choose goal camera
5: Choose top-down camera

The birds-eye camera can be controlled by the following keys:

Up/Down/Left/Right: Pan the camera
Shift+Up/Shift+Down: Zoom in/out

Car Control

W: Forward gas
S: Reverse gas
A: Turn left
D: Turn right
Space: Brake

Using any of the car control keys will deactivate the path follower until the mission is restarted or a new mission is loaded.

Simulator

F11: Toggle fullscreen
F12: Toggle dark/light background
Enter: Start the path follower
0: Restart the current mission
Escape: Open or close the simulator console
Shift-Escape: Exit the simulator

License

This software is freely distributable under the terms of the MIT License.

mattbradley/AutonomousCar