SDC Meetup #10

1. Punnu Phairatt, Parkopedia - Vehicle Feedback Control
   How do we make a self-driving car to go where we want it to go? How do we ensure the comfort of the ride? How do we make it work on the various types of road conditions such as flat roads, up and down hills, sharp twists and turns? How do we turn the desired vehicle state such as location and speed into commands to the vehicle such as throttle, brake and steering? How do we deal with the mechanical delays in driving?
   In this talk, we will talk about feedback control on self-driving cars. We will look at a simple cascaded Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller and consider its limitations. We will also briefly consider the alternatives such as Model Predictive Control (MPC).

2. Jessica Uguccioni, Law Commission - AVs and the Law
   The Law Commission has recently released its first consultation paper (https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/project/automated-vehicles/) on how the law might change to accommodate automated vehicles. In this talk we will discuss the key topics in the paper. First, how can safety be assured before automated vehicles are placed on the market, as well as ongoing monitoring and maintenance requirements once they are on the road? Second, criminal and civil liability. Finally, do we need a digital highway code? How can we adapt road rules for artificial intelligence? Our paper covers all these topics and outlines some possible approaches.

Agenda:

6-6:30pm Networking, pizza, drinks

6:30-7:15pm Punnu Phairatt

7:15-8pm Jessica Uguccioni

8pm+ Q&A and networking

Topics we are looking to cover in future meetups (please volunteer!):

• Robotics: SLAM (filter and graph), localisation, mapping, dynamics

• Automotive tech: LiDAR, RADAR, Ultrasonic sensors

• Simulation, Hardware-in-the-loop

• More deep learning/computer vision topics