Coupling SUMO with a Motion Planning Framework for Automated Vehicles

Testing motion planning algorithms for automated vehicles in realistic simulation environments accelerates their development compared to performing real-world test drives only. In this work, we combine the open-source microscopic traffic simulator SUMO with our software framework CommonRoad to test motion planning of automated vehicles. Since SUMO is not originally designed for simulating automated vehicles, we present an interface for exchanging the trajectories of vehicles controlled by a motion planner and the trajectories of other traffic participants between SUMO and CommonRoad. Furthermore, we ensure realistic dynamic behavior of other traffic participants by extending the lane changing model in SUMO to implement more realistic lateral dynamics. We demonstrate our SUMO interface with a highway scenario.