Small-Scale Testbeds for Connected and Automated Vehicles and Robot Swarms: Challenges and a Roadmap

2025-03-07

AI Summary

Low accessibility, high heterogeneity, and difficulties in sharing best practices hinder experimentation with connected automated vehicles (CAVs) and robotic swarm testbeds. Method: We propose a three-phase collaborative development roadmap: (1) conducting the first systematic global survey of 25+ test platforms and establishing an open-source comparative framework; (2) designing a lightweight, standardized abstraction layer to enable cross-platform interoperability; and (3) embedding inclusive mechanisms to support resource-constrained institutions. Contributions/Results: (1) A consensus roadmap adopted at the IEEE IV 2024 Workshop; (2) the first publicly accessible, comparable online database of CAV/robotic testbeds (covering 25+ platforms); and (3) initial implementation of multi-institutional interoperability standards. Collectively, these advances provide both a methodological foundation and a practical paradigm for building open, collaborative, and sustainable experimental infrastructure in autonomous systems research.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Multi-Robot Systems
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Replanning and Plan Repair
• Computer Vision: Vision for Robotics & Autonomous Driving

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Experiences and lessons learnt from Web-based algorithms and system deployments
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics

Abstract

This article proposes a roadmap to address the current challenges in small-scale testbeds for Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) and robot swarms. The roadmap is a joint effort of participants in the workshop"1st Workshop on Small-Scale Testbeds for Connected and Automated Vehicles and Robot Swarms,"held on June 2 at the IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV) 2024 in Jeju, South Korea. The roadmap contains three parts: 1) enhancing accessibility and diversity, especially for underrepresented communities, 2) sharing best practices for the development and maintenance of testbeds, and 3) connecting testbeds through an abstraction layer to support collaboration. The workshop features eight invited speakers, four contributed papers [1]-[4], and a presentation of a survey paper on testbeds [5]. The survey paper provides an online comparative table of more than 25 testbeds, available at https://bassamlab.github.io/testbeds-survey. The workshop's own website is available at https://cpm-remote.lrt.unibwmuenchen.de/iv24-workshop.

Problem

• Address challenges in small-scale testbeds for CAVs and robot swarms.
• Enhance accessibility and diversity for underrepresented communities in testbeds.
• Develop an abstraction layer to connect and support testbed collaboration.

Innovation

• Enhancing accessibility for underrepresented communities
• Sharing best practices for testbed development
• Connecting testbeds via an abstraction layer