Datron Technology and OxTS propel OBR Autonomous to Victory in Formula Student UK’s ‘Self-Driving Car’ Competition
OBR Autonomous are using the industry-leading OXTS RT1003 system provided by Datron Technology to validate and benchmark the performance of their own localisation systems, and assist in the generation of ‘digital twins’ of the vehicle and test track in a simulated environment. This has involved integrating the RT1003 into the latest middleware, and replicating the unit in simulation software – complete with experimentally validated noise models to replicate real sensor behaviour.
This has allowed Oxford Brookes University to compete strongly in the 2020 Formula Student UK: Artificial Intelligence (DDT class) – placing an unprecedented 1st in design, 1st in business, 4th in real world autonomous driving, and 1st in the new autonomous simulation event.
Jacob Culley, Team Lead at Oxford Brookes Racing Autonomous, explains that,
“The RT1003 provides us with incredible centimetre-level positioning accuracy, which means we can identify, understand and rectify conditions where our own localisation and mapping systems can be further improved. The support from OxTS and Datron has contributed significantly to our fantastic result this year. As this continues, we hope to be able to up the pace and begin to compete against our human drivers!”
OBR Autonomous have published the overall system design in a conference paper to help others get started in autonomous driving: Culley J, Garlick S, Esteller E, Georgiev P, Fursa I, Vander Sluis I, Ball P, Bradley A, (2020), System Design for a Driverless Autonomous Racing Vehicle, 12th IEEE/IET International Symposium on Communication Systems, Networks, and Digital Signal Processing (CSNDSP), 20-22 July 2020, Porto, Portugal.
