Autonomous Driving

 

Many new cars sold today are equipped with driver assist/ safety systems. Additionally most cars today use a form of CAN to control: basic car functions, gas by wire, brake by wire, steering, etc. Essentially most new vehicles are simply missing software and the communications hardware to interface the autonomous driving software with the vehicle. 

 

Comma.ai started the development of an opensource software to operate a vehicle at level 2 autonomy. The software is called Openpilot, and is available for download on GitHub. Comma.ai also makes a board, known as a Panda, to intercept car CAN messages and selectively send existing and new CAN messages back to the vehicles OEM systems. The process of selectively sending CAN messages and writing new CAN messages, enables Openpilot to control the vehicles Latitudinal direction (steering: left, right) and the Longitudinal speed (moving forward: gas, brake). 

 

Openpilot uses visual information from a camera, along with radar data from the vehicle to drive on roadways. Openpilot keeps a vehicle in it's lane, brakes to slow down for vehicles in front of the car or cutting into the car's lane, it also speeds up to maintain a pace with vehicles in front. Like traditional cruise control, Openpilot has a settable max speed or cruise speed, operated through the stock cruise control buttons. Openpilot is comparable to other Level 2 systems such as the one found on many Tesla vehicles.

Many traditional car manufacturers models are already supported from the Openpilot community. Level 2 autonomous driving is possible with few modifications. Just an ODB 2 plug; a harness to interface with existing the CAN systems; and a device that is able to interface with the harness and run Openpilot. 

Comma.ai already sells a device to run Openpilot on, it's known as the Comma 2. At roughly $1200, at the time of this writing, it cost a fraction of what Tesla charges for their "autopilot". Unless you want an electric car, why go with a Tesla? If you're only interested in the autonomous driving aspect, definitely look into the Comma 2. An additional plus to traditional vehicle manufacturers is that they willingly sell parts to customers, saving owner's time and money when repairing an issue. 

 

I hope to see the vehicle market adopt technology like Openpilot in the future!