Guest Lecture: Taking Autonomy Off-road: Advancing Standards and Simulation to Support Off-road Autonomous Systems

Abstract: Taking Autonomy Off-road: Advancing Standards and Simulation to Support Off-road Autonomous Systems

Autonomous vehicles operating off-road face unique challenges: degraded sensing, complex terrain, and limited support from existing autonomy frameworks. At Mississippi State University's Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems (CAVS), we work to address these issues through integrated research in the development of autonomy using field testing, simulation, and standards. 

This work focuses on developing simulation-based methods to evaluate off-road behaviors, in part using our Mississippi State University Autonomous Vehicle Simulator (MAVS) platform to test autonomy under sensor occlusion, in dense vegetation, and soft or uneven terrain. In collaboration with NATO, we are contributing to a multi-nation demonstration of a shared virtual environment for testing autonomous behaviors in off-road scenarios. The NATO effort directly informs our contributions to the ASAM OpenX standards community, where we are proposing extensions to address critical gaps in industry simulation standards, such as modeling of deformable terrain interactions, definition of vehicles, models of vegetation and other objects, and agent coordination.

Our findings support the development of a simulation and standards ecosystem that enables repeatable, high-fidelity evaluation of autonomous systems in off-road contexts - an essential foundation for developing novel capabilities and advancing trust in autonomy in challenging environments.