Research on an Open-Source Software Platform for Autonomous Driving Systems

The next larger step in automotive development will be towards autonomously driving cars. Autonomous driving will be a highly complex and safety-related function in future vehicles, and current software platforms are not adequate for this function. We present our ongoing research on an open-source software platform for autonomous driving software systems. From our experience with use cases of existing driver assistance systems and research projects, we derive requirements on the software platform. We motivate the advantages of open-source development over proprietary development and provide arguments for an open-source qualified (open-proof) software platform. Furthermore, we propose an architecture for the software platform based on the Linux operating system and other open-source software. This architecture fulfills the requirements and makes development and qualification of such systems efficient.