• Image annotation

  • LIDAR simulation

  • Image annotation

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Versatile vehicular software platform

BeamNG.research is a very versatile and open platform for development related to vehicles. Due to its flexibility in its input/output and integrated editors, it is a very good solution to solve problems for the automotive industry and everything around it.

State-of-the-art Soft body physics

We are using an in-house advanced physics engine that enables everyone to build anything out of mass points called ‘nodes’ and connections in between called ‘beams’:

With these basic building blocks, you can build everything:

Example of unintentional behaviors of the physics engine due to the low level simulation:

General tech overview:

Collision detection

Collision detection and resolving at 2000 Hz

Several ground models are available: Asphalt, dirt, gravel, ice, etc

No cheating: Collision resolving is strictly penalty force based, to guarantee physics invariants (momentum conservation etc)

Interoperability

We can import and export data in various ways and formats:

  • Motion/Trajectory/Forces/Telemetry output of various sensors at up to 2k Hz
  • NetworkSocket and Pipe compatible
  • CAN bus (WIP)

  • Example of an android app sending the input and displaying telemetry data:

Simulation

We are simulating a huge variety of subsystems. Some of them:

  • Highly dynamic, interactive drivetrain
  • Brakes: ABS, ECS, thermal simulation
  • High detailed interiors and dynamic dashboards:
  • Engine: Pressure cooled combustion engine
  • Rendering: Good looking visuals:

    Physically based rendering is planned

  • Onboard simulation of devices. For example a simple navigation system with an isolated software:
  • Racing AI that does dynamic path/race line planning without cheating
  • High level scenarios to reenact special scenes

Aerodynamics and hydrodynamics

We are simulating realtime aerodynamics, hydrodynamics and buoyancy:

Pressured volumes:

Pixel perfect image annotation

We can extract images from the simulation:

  • Normal, annotated and depth images (WIP)
  • Good similarity metrics of the extracted images: You can extract a huge amount of different images
  • Our AI drives the vehicles around on our extensive road network in fast-forward
  • Is able to extract a huge amount of images in a short amount of time

Sensors

We are working on various sensors for the vehicles:

  • Forces/Accelerations in high resolution on 2k points in the car
  • Positioning/GPS (WIP)
  • Laser scanners: LIDAR (2.2M points/s at 30 FPS atm)
  • Ultrasound / Distance (WIP)
  • Radar (WIP)
  • Multiple cameras (WIP)
  • Sensor fusion (change sensor setup and re-extract the data) – WIP

Realtime tire physics

In order to calibrate and test our tires, we built an ingame tire tester that ensures the quality of the collision simulation:

More information in our blog: Part 1 / Part 2

Content pipeline

The project is very interoperable with other standards and formats. Some rough keywords:

  • 3D model workflow with 3ds Max/Blender/Maya via Collada (.dae)
  • OpenDrive (WIP)
  • OpenStreetmap (WIP)
  • Integrated level editor:

Autonomous vehicle testing

  • You can extract the data, sensors, images, etc and close the loop back and provide the steering, etc input back to the simulation in realtime.
  • Every vehicle in our simulation is an agent that has its own operating system written in Lua. Changing the behavior is just a matter of a key press, resulting in fast development iteration times

License

  • Free for non-commercial use. We love to participate in research and push the boundaries of what humanity can do together – so it is natural for us to support researchers and their students.
  • Commercial license available. Please contact us.

Citation

Use of BeamNG.Research in non-commercial, academic studies should be properly cited in any articles or presentations made about the research project. Please adhere to the citation format required by your institution or publication, using the information below:

Title: BeamNG.Research
Author: BeamNG GmbH
Address: Bremen, Germany
Year: 2018
Version: 1.3.0.0
URL: https://www.beamng.gmbh/research

It would be appreciated if you send us a copy of the article or presentation for our records.

@software{beamng_research,
title = "{B}eam{NG}.research",
author = {{BeamNG GmbH}},
url = {https://www.beamng.gmbh/research},
version = {1.3.0.0},
date = {2018-10-11},
}