The PoliMOVE-MSU Indy Autonomous Challenge team, a collaboration between Michigan State University and Politecnico di Milano, is a leading force in autonomous racing. The team secured first place in the 2024 Indy Autonomous Challenge, showcasing their cutting-edge innovation and engineering expertise.

To maintain their competitive edge, the team requires high-quality, real-world sensor data to help train and test their autonomous vehicles. Currently, the PoliMOVE-MSU team does most of their data collection and autonomous systems testing within virtual environments. To create realistic environments, it is essential that realistic sensor data is utilized. However, collecting enough sensor data can be very difficult and time-consuming.

Our Test Platform for Self-Driving Race Cars (SDRC) bridges the inherent gap between the virtual testing environments and real-world autonomous driving by enabling users to collect real-world data easily with a scale model vehicle.

Our design features two main hardware systems: a 1:10 scale model of the real Indy Autonomous Vehicle and a base station, which in turn consists of a laptop, a driving chair, a steering wheel and pedals.

The base station uses a web application to control the vehicle. It sends control data from the steering wheel and pedals to the vehicle, enabling the user to control the system remotely. As the vehicle is driven through its environment, it utilizes a variety of real sensors to map its environment, which it sends back to the base station to be saved and displayed.

Using this web application, users are able to record, replay and download sensor data for any use case. The web back end is written in Python and the front end is written in HTML. The laptop communicates with the vehicle using the node system employed by the ROS2 middleware.