One of the primary verification criteria of the autonomous vehicle is safe interaction with other road users. Based on studies, real-road testing is not practical for safety validation due to its time and cost consuming. Therefore, simulating miles driven is the only feasible way to overcome this limitation. The primary goal of the related research project is to develop advanced techniques in the human-robot interaction (HRI) safety validation area by usage of immersive simulation technologies. Developing methods for the creation of the simulation environment will enable us to do experiments in a digital environment rather than real. The main aim of the paper is to develop an effective method of creating a virtual environment for performing simulations on industrial robots, mobile robots, and autonomous vehicles (AGV-s) from the safety perspective for humans. A mid-size drone was used for aerial imagery as the first step in creating a virtual environment. Then all the photos were processed in several steps to build the final 3D map. Next, this mapping method was used to create a high detail simulation environment for testing an autonomous shuttle. Developing efficient methods for mapping real environments and simulating their variables is crucial for the testing and development of control algorithms of autonomous vehicles.

No abstract

No abstract

Timber industry is one of the most relevant economic sectors in Estonia. Automatization of forestry management and harvesting processes optimization are realities also in this specific domain. As much as in other industrial fields adopting the Industry 4.0 paradigm and core technologies, forestry management, log harvesting and the wood processing industry make use of state-of-the-art sensors, Digital Twins and advanced interfaces for the operators. The latter include Extended Reality solutions and remote-control making use of immersive head mounted displays (HMD). This works presents an innovative system for hydraulic forestry crane teleoperation making use of HMD and wide-angle camera stream. The system hardware is installed locally while the software, integrated in Unity, supports the operator in using the crane’s native joysticks and controller for the log loading operations. Additional virtual user interface and controls are included in the immersive view and accessible through the same controls and joysticks.

The Autonomous Vehicle (AV) industry aims to design strategic plans to ensure the safety of the developed systems before their mass deployment. Real-road testing is shown to be impractical for validating these systems as it requires many years if not decades of testing in different environmental conditions. Therefore, this method must be complemented with simulation for a feasible solution. The primary goal of this research is to develop advanced techniques in the safety validation area by using immersive simulation technologies. This study led to a simulation approach for safety evaluation of an AV shuttle, ise Auto, currently operating at the TalTech campus. First, we create a virtual environment based on the specified path on the university campus including all relevant features. The environment is created by using geospatial data which is collected by a drone, then they are converted to a 3D map applicable for the LGSVL simulator. Next, the developed shuttle 3D model is imported to the simulation environment and with the aim of the LGSVL, sensor data are provided for the Autoware perception algorithms, which is the control software of the shuttle. This system enables us to evaluate AV’s decision-making performance and safety in different situations.