Autonomous Driving Using Fluid Flow Simulation

This paper describes a fluid simulation application for the generation of driving trajectories in a simulated environment. The proposed method translates a segmented view from a front-facing camera into a top-down view of a road network, which is used as a river system where fluid flow is being simulated. Inspired by the natural phenomenon of water particles navigating complex riverbed obstacles, the driving trajectory is planned by tracing the simulated fluid flow. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed solution, the method was tested in several driving scenarios proposed in state-of-the-art papers, including navigating traffic and obstacles in city and highway environments. This solution shows that even very complex tasks can be solved using elegant nature-inspired approaches.