Study Plan

A curated list of online courses and tutorials for a new student.

0. Autonomous Driving

If you are new to Autonomous Driving, it is better to start with an overview of the area. The most common approach is to read a review or survey papers to get your feet wet.

Survey Papers

• A Survey of Autonomous Driving: Common Practices and Emerging Technologies
• Autonomous Vehicles: State of the Art, Future Trends, and Challenges
• Autonomous Driving: Context and State-of-the-Art
• Autonomous Vehicle Implementation Predictions

Online Courses

• Self-Driving Cars Specialization by the University of Toronto through Coursera. You may audit the courses for free.
  • 1. Introduction to Self-Driving Cars
  • 2. State Estimation and Localization for Self-Driving Cars
  • 3. Visual Perception for Self-Driving Cars
  • 4. Motion Planning for Self-Driving Cars

1. Intro

Programming

• Intro to Computer Science
  • https://www.udacity.com/course/intro-to-computer-science–cs101
• Intro to Python for Data Science
  • https://www.datacamp.com/courses/intro-to-python-for-data-science
• Python for Data Science
  • https://www.edx.org/course/python-data-science-uc-san-diegox-dse200x

Machine Learning

• Machine Learning by Andrew Ng
  • https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning
• Convolutional Neural Network
  • https://www.coursera.org/learn/convolutional-neural-networks
• Neural Networks and Deep Learning – Online book
  • http://neuralnetworksanddeeplearning.com/
• Machine Learning Crash Course by Google
  • https://developers.google.com/machine-learning/crash-course
• Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) – Concepts without equations
  • http://neuralnetworksanddeeplearning.com/

Robotics

• Artificial Intelligence for Robotics
  • https://www.udacity.com/course/artificial-intelligence-for-robotics–cs373

Term Project

• A vehicular robot that runs in a maze.

2. ROS

Preparation for this term

We have to prepare an environment for this term. The following are the software packages.

• OS:
  • Ubuntu 18.04 for ROS,
  • Ubuntu 20.04 or above for ROS2
• ROS
  • Melodic for Ubuntu 18.04 
  • Noetic for Ubuntu 20.04
• ROS2
  • Foxy, Galactic, Rolling for Ubuntu 20.04, 20.04, and 22.04 respectively.
• Visual Studio Code ← IDE
• Git / GitHub ← Version control

Version Control

These are short courses. Their timelines are usually 3 weeks.

• Version Control with Git
  • https://www.udacity.com/course/version-control-with-git–ud123
• How to Use Git and GitHub
  • https://www.udacity.com/course/how-to-use-git-and-github–ud775
• GitHub & Collaboration
  • https://www.udacity.com/course/github-collaboration–ud456

Deep Learning

• Deep Learning
  • https://www.udacity.com/course/deep-learning–ud730
• CS231n: Convolutional Neural Networks for Visual Recognition by Fei-Fei Li
  • http://cs231n.stanford.edu/

Tutorials: not a course

• Keras as a simplified interface to TensorFlow: tutorial
  • https://blog.keras.io/keras-as-a-simplified-interface-to-tensorflow-tutorial.html
• Very short tutorial: Keras Tensorflow tutorial: Practical guide from getting started to developing complex deep neural network
  • http://cv-tricks.com/tensorflow-tutorial/keras/
• 7 Steps to Mastering Deep Learning with Keras
  • https://www.kdnuggets.com/2017/10/seven-steps-deep-learning-keras.html

Robotics

• Programming for Robotics – ROS by ETH Zurich
  • http://www.rsl.ethz.ch/education-students/lectures/ros.html
• MIT 6.S094: Deep Learning for Self-Driving Cars
  • https://selfdrivingcars.mit.edu/

Tutorials: not a course

• Tutorials by Justin Huang
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U6GDonGFHw&list=PLJNGprAk4DF5PY0kB866fEZfz6zMLJTF8

Final Project

• Build a model car powered by ROS
  • http://f1tenth.org/

3. Deep Learning

Deep Learning

• Practical Deep Learning for Coders
  • http://course.fast.ai/

Robotics

• Gazebo
  • Simulation
• Rviz
  • Robot visualization

Final Project

• Donkey Car
  • http://www.donkeycar.com/
  • https://docs.google.com/document/d/11IPqZcDcLTd2mtYaR5ONpDxFgL9Y1nMNTDvEarST8Wk/edit

4. ROS + Deep Learning = Autonomous Vehicle

Deep Learning

• Implement End-To-End Driving

Robotics

• CAT Vehicle
  • https://github.com/JD-ETH/catvehicle
  • https://github.com/sprinkjm/catvehicle

Final Project

• Jetson Autonomous RC Car
  • https://github.com/dat-ai/jetson-car

5. Build an Autonomous Vehicle Model

Final Project

• Interfacing a DBW car with ROS
  • https://bitbucket.org/account/user/DataspeedInc/projects/AK