MIRMI News

Robotic systems will have a more significant impact on our future lives than ever before. Autonomous vehicles transport goods or people in our transportation networks, household robots support us with everyday tasks like cleaning or folding clothes, and healthcare robots operate in clinics or nurseries. Accordingly, the necessary skills should be developed early on in training and studies.

A comment of Felix Jahncke and Prof. Johannes Betz

These robot systems consist of complicated hardware and even more complex software that operates the robot reliably and safely. To develop these robots, we need a new generation of robotic engineers capable of understanding not only the theory but also the practical implications of real-world robot systems. This is why new university courses are established that allow students to engage with hardware early on in their studies and apply the theoretical foundations hands-on.

Autonomous Systems Hands-on: The tailored course for robotics students

One of these courses is the „F1TENTH: Autonomous Systems Hands-on“ class offered by the Autonomous Vehicle Systems Lab (AVS) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM). In just one semester we teach students to design and implement software for autonomous vehicles through a blend of theory and hands-on practice. In this course, the students have access to a 1:10 small-scale autonomous vehicle equipped with perception sensors like a 3D-LiDAR, a stereovision camera, and GPU-based computation hardware. The students learn the foundations of the core components of robot software, like perception, planning, and control, and then have the chance to apply them to the real robot hardware immediately. This allows the students to learn about the difficulties of deploying, tuning, and enhancing the software components. Through the semester, students gain a deep understanding of the entire software pipeline, resulting in a fully operational vehicle with a complete software stack. In a final project, the students demonstrate their abilities to bring their own ideas to life when implementing a final software project on this vehicle.

TUM courses are an inspiration for new approaches, also of the Robotics Institute Germany

With cheaper robot hardware coming to market, like quadrupeds, drones, and even humanoid robots, the possibilities for similar courses at universities will grow. With the Robotics Institute of Germany (RIG), we will go even further and develop new master programs that are tailor-made to both the needs of society and what future robotics engineers need to learn - the theoretical robot foundations and hands-on application to real-world robots in practical courses, semester-long projects, and final thesis projects.

More information: https://www.mos.ed.tum.de/en/avs/teaching/f1tenth-autonomous-driving-hands-on/