Autonomous Roadside Mower testing and Evaluation in Digital Twin Environments

Autonomous Roadside Mower testing and Evaluation in Digital Twin Environments

Modern day roadside mowing operations in Indiana are performed by contractors operating tractors that pull flex-wing mowers. These mowing operations span over 11,000 miles of road across the state and create serious risk for human operators. Autonomous mowers can provide a safer alternative, but a replacement system must demonstrate an acceptable level of trust before large-scale deployment. A high-fidelity digital-twin environment can facilitate the capability to rapidly test and evaluate platforms in their desired application, while enabling zero real-world risk, a wide range of test variables, and repeatability of a test setup. The simulation environment must be at a level of fidelity that can generate representative results and model behaviors of the autonomous platforms in the real-world, while also providing detailed information to assess the safety and performance of the vehicles proposed. The tool proposed can provide information for the decision making of autonomy integration and provide insight on platform capabilities to developers.