Team AnnieWAY's Adventures http://www.mrt.kit.edu/annieway//blog.html This site follows the work and experiences of the Team AnnieWAY. We make cars drive autonomously. Fri, 12 Aug 2011 08:14:24 GMT Blogofile hourly 1 Preparations for IV Demo http://www.mrt.kit.edu/annieway//blog.html#preparations-for-iv-demo Fri, 03 Jun 2011 12:10:30 MEST Preparations for IV Demo The IV is starting and we are quite excited. A lot of us here at the MRT are involved in the organisation and we sure hope everything will go over nicely.

One of the things we look forward the most on the IV is the Demonstration Day. Demonstrations are always fun: You work towards presenting a specific state of your work, there is no hiding behind words or paper and you show off what you are really capable of. You are always at risk that something unexpected happens: broken parts, external conditions that you didn't account for, bugs that haven't surfaced so far and the like. But when everything works out, the feeling of satisfaction is second to none.

There are many interesting demonstrations planned by the other participants of the demonstration team and we look forward to see what others did. But obviously, team AnnieWAY will also be there and we are hard working preparing the demonstrations we want to show. We will show a hand-held stereo reconstruction demonstrator, some videos of the GCDC and obviously some autonomous driving: parking using the Velodyne scanner as sensor and also something new (for us) that came from our work from the GCDC: Following a vehicle autonomously, not only in one dimension, but fully, including steering.

Please make sure to visit us and say hello if you are attending the IV!

]]> GCDC wrapup http://www.mrt.kit.edu/annieway//blog.html#gcdc-wrapup Wed, 18 May 2011 16:00:00 MEST GCDC wrapup platoon By now, we are back at Karlsruhe and have recovered a bit from last week which was exhausting for all of us. The dust is settling, and we are wrapping up the GCDC: the software needs to be brought into a state that can be easily reactivated, some documentation needs to be written and obviously we have still to celebrate our first place with the other scientists at our home institute.

Last week was great fun! We'd like to send greetings and thanks to all the people that we were working with: All the members of the participating teams and all TNO stuff that we met. It was great getting to know you all and we definitively stay in touch. Hopefully, we'll meet before GCDC 2 again!

With the end of the GCDC, this homepage will become a little less active again. We will continue to blog about important developments for Team AnnieWAY, but for now, we all have to get back working on our PhDs for a while.

]]> We won! http://www.mrt.kit.edu/annieway//blog.html#we-won! Sun, 15 May 2011 20:31:00 MEST We won! Results of the GCDC 2011:

  • 1st place: AnnieWAY
  • 2nd place: Halmstad
  • 3rd place: Chalmers
  • 4th place: Scoop
  • 5th place: Autopia
  • 6th place: A-Team
  • 7th place: Mekar
  • 8th place: Futurum
  • 9th place: Latvia
]]> Second competition day http://www.mrt.kit.edu/annieway//blog.html#second-competition-day Sun, 15 May 2011 17:17:00 MEST Second competition day platoon Today was the second (and final) day of the competition. The runs of today were much better than yesterday since some problems of the other days have been fixed. Our car worked well like yesterday and we think that we could make a couple of points during the runs. But let's see, the final result will be presented soon...

]]> End of first competition day http://www.mrt.kit.edu/annieway//blog.html#end-of-first-competition-day Sat, 14 May 2011 23:11:00 MEST End of first competition day At the end of the first competition day our impression of our own performance was quite good. Everything in own car worked as expected and we had some nice runs. However, in one of the runs there was a very dangerous situation not far from a serious accident. Luckily we were not involved in this situation.

In the evening was a barbecue held at TNO and some results of the first day were presented. Unfortunately, the intermediate ranking was disappointing for us since a couple of teams were ranked high which did not meet the safety requirements specified in the rules while other teams were ranked lower which had very reliable systems. However, we will continue tomorrow and see how the final results will look like.

]]> Competition started http://www.mrt.kit.edu/annieway//blog.html#competition-started Sat, 14 May 2011 14:24:00 MEST Competition started platoon The competition finally was started this morning. After our tests yesterday we were optimistic that our vehicle wouldn't perform badly today. However, we heavily rely on the information provided by the other cars and we already knew that some teams have big problems providing valid and reliable data.

The competition started with two test runs. In both we run into trouble since some predecessing cars were not communicating their position reliable and we could not detect them with our radar system since they were waiting in front of a traffic lights so that the radar did not provide their position. Beside this issue (which we have already raised a couple of times) our car worked properly.

Then, the competition runs started. Luckily, our car did not cause problems and we could drive all heats successfully. However, a dangerous situation occured when another vehicle approached us from behind with high speed and did not break early enough. A collision could only be prevented by manual interaction.

]]> Testing again and again http://www.mrt.kit.edu/annieway//blog.html#testing-again-and-again Fri, 13 May 2011 18:44:00 MEST Testing again and again The last day before the event made us a little bit nervous. You see all the things that do not work as you planned and you try to fix as much as possible. However, we did not implement new features today but focussed on testing, testing, and testing. The day started with a test session at the DAF testing site between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. and continued with testing the following controller and the radar sensor on the A270 highway between Helmond and Eindhoven. Now, our guys are testing the communication with other team vehicles and the platooning controller in parallel. For 7:30 p.m. we ordered pizza since we did not have time for breakfast or lunch today.

Meanwhile, we also obtained the schedule for tomorrow. It is very tight and we will drive 12 heats between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. We expect it to become a hard day again.

]]> Early bird days http://www.mrt.kit.edu/annieway//blog.html#early-bird-days Thu, 12 May 2011 17:23:00 MEST Early bird days Screenshot Well, days can become quite long, when you start early. Today was such a day because TNO arranged the possibility to perform platooning tests on the testing site of DAF near Eindhoven. The snag to it was that the test site was free only between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. so that our four guys who went there had to leave at 5 a.m. already! However, the tests were very fruitful and we could perform successful experiments together with four other teams.

]]> Social Event http://www.mrt.kit.edu/annieway//blog.html#social-event Thu, 12 May 2011 12:15:00 MEST Social Event DAF museum Yesterday evening was the social event of the GCDC. We went to the DAF museum in Eindhoven and watched the old and modern cars and trucks that were shown there. The museum is quite nice and the guides were very motivated in showing the young guys the advantages of the technique of former days.

]]> Working days http://www.mrt.kit.edu/annieway//blog.html#working-days Wed, 11 May 2011 16:51:00 MEST Working days discussion during a test drive Meanwhile, we are in Helmond for five days and it is hard to remember which day of the week it currently is. The usual living schedule is lost and the days are formed by working on the software and testing on the car. The only contact to normal life is breakfast in a bakery in the morning (they really offer tasty pastry!) and the dinner in the evening. However, it is difficult to find a restaurant in Helmond that is not yet closed at 9:30 p.m. or 10 p.m. when we usually come back to the hotel.

Fortunately, most of the teams have improved during recent days and we are optimistic that at least seven or eight cars will be working on weekend. Our own software is also improving; we hope to be successful in integrating the radar data by tomorrow. As ususal in software development, debugging takes much longer than you expect...

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