xBOT — A Versatile Robot to Assist Testing of Autonomous-Connected Vehicles

Abstract

his project aims to develop a robot (xBOT) that is customized for testing autonomous-connected vehicles. xBOT itself would be an automated-connected robot that behaves, and be perceived, as a free-moving Pedestrian, Scooter, Bicycle, Motorbike, or full-sized Vehicle. The project’s original intention was to build xBOT by modifying the Segway Ninebot©. As such, the objectives of the project were to ruggedize the platform, provide a user-friendly interface to easily program the platform’s motion, integrate the platform into the Mcity OS, allow the platform to communicate, and be synchronized, with other static and dynamic traffic elements, and achieve all this under a complete life-cycle cost of $10,000 per robot. The pitfall in developing on top of the Segway Ninebot is that when the commercial manufacturer modifies the firmware, it requires a major update of our (developer’s) side. This issue was only realized in July 2023, towards the end of the CCAT project. To circumvent this problem, an alternate platform is being pursued and the results of that effort will be reported in the parallel Mcity project.