{"id":440229,"date":"2017-11-13T11:29:34","date_gmt":"2017-11-13T19:29:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?p=440229"},"modified":"2018-03-15T09:57:15","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T16:57:15","slug":"autonomous-car-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/blog\/autonomous-car-research\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft extends AirSim to include autonomous car research"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Earlier this year, we open-sourced a research project called AirSim (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, a high-fidelity system for testing the safety of artificial intelligence systems. AirSim provides realistic environments, vehicle dynamics and sensing for research into how autonomous vehicles that use AI that can operate safely in the open world.<\/p>\n

Today, we are sharing an update to AirSim: We have extended the system to include car simulation, which will help advance the research and development of self-driving vehicles. The latest version is available now on GitHub (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> as an open-source, cross-platform offering.<\/p>\n

The updated version of AirSim also includes many other features and enhancements, including additional tools for testing airborne vehicles. We have made it easier for people to simulate flying drones by adding a built-in flight controller, called simple_flight, that simplifies the setup process. This allows rapid experimentation with control and state estimation algorithms without requiring expensive debugging and development in the embedded world.<\/p>\n

Building and testing cars in simulation
\n<\/strong>Developing algorithms for self-driving cars is an expensive proposition. It requires infrastructure to build expensive hardware platforms, large amounts data and the ability to quickly test and benchmark results. We aim to make these various aspects of developing self-driving cars available to a broader group of researchers by providing an open, community-driven platform for testing those algorithms. The new version of AirSim includes car simulations, new environments, APIs to ease programming and ready-to-run scripts to jump start your research.<\/p>\n

Rapidly building richer environments
\n<\/strong>AirSim comes with a detailed 3D urban environment that includes a variety of diverse conditions, including traffic lights, parks, lakes and construction sites. Users can test their systems in several types of neighborhoods, including downtown, semi-urban, vegetation and industrial environments. The simulation contains more than 12 kilometers of drivable roads spanning more than 20 city blocks.<\/p>\n