Construction of Virtual Large-Scale Road Environment for Developing Control Algorithms for Autonomous and Electric Vehicles

Control algorithms developed for autonomous and electric vehicles undergo limited trials because of the high cost of using actual vehicles. This study constructs a low-cost virtual environment for developing such control algorithms using open data and a game engine. Specifically, a large-scale three-dimensional urban road model with elevation differences is generated. This model is connected with hardware-in-the-loop simulations (HILS) as a vehicle running model to realize a practical system. This study reveals the need to automate the model development process in light of its high cost.