Udacity Open Sources Driving Simulator

Udacity has published the driving simulator that is used in its nanodegree for self-driving engineers on GitHub as Open Source. Although some development teams also use video game such as Grand Theft Auto, more tools are always welcome, especially when they come from a team backed by Sebastian Thrun.

Videos uploaded by students from this program showing the simulator can be found on YouTube and in the (closed) Facebook groups for the course participants.

Simulations are the most important method in the development of autonomous cars. Waymo-CEO John Krafcik recently explained that 2016 Waymo-cars drove 1 billion miles in the simulator. Other companies heavily employ simulators as well. They allow to repeat eevery type of driving scenario under varying conditions and train the AI-system.

Not only the Udacity driving simulator is open sourced, also the code developed by course participants. Other Open Source projects include George Hotz’s Comma.ai Open Pilot, and the Open Source Car Control Kit.

This article is also available in German.