The Development of an Autonomous Vehicle Training and Verification System for the Purpose of Teaching Experiments

Abstract

To cultivate students’ skills in building autonomous vehicle neural network models and to reduce development costs, a system was developed for on-campus training and verification. The system includes (a) autonomous vehicles, (b) test tracks, (c) a data collection and training system, and (d) a test and scoring system. In this system, students can assemble the hardware of the vehicle, configure the software, and choose or modify the neural network model in class. They can then collect the necessary data for the model and train the model. Finally, the system’s test and scoring system can be used to test and verify the performance of the autonomous vehicle. The study found that vehicle turning is better controlled by a motor and steering mechanism, and the camera should be mounted in a high position and at the front of the vehicle to avoid interference with the steering mechanism. Additionally, the study revealed that the training and testing speeds of the autonomous vehicle are dependent on each other, and high-quality results cannot be obtained solely by training a model based on camera images.