Data Quality Matters: Quantifying Image Quality Impact on Machine Learning Performance

Precise perception of the environment is essential in highly automated driving systems, which rely on machine learning tasks such as object detection and segmentation. Compression of sensor data is commonly used for data handling, while virtualization is used for hardware-in-the-loop validation. Both methods can alter sensor data and degrade model performance. This necessitates a systematic approach to quantifying image validity. This paper presents a four-step framework to evaluate the impact of image modifications on machine learning tasks. First, a dataset with modified images is prepared to ensure one-to-one matching image pairs, enabling measurement of deviations resulting from compression and virtualization. Second, image deviations are quantified by comparing the effects of compression and virtualization against original camera-based sensor data. Third, the performance of state-of-the-art object detection models is analyzed to determine how altered input data affects perception tasks, including bounding box accuracy and reliability. Finally, a correlation analysis is performed to identify relationships between image quality and model performance. As a result, the LPIPS metric achieves the highest correlation between image deviation and machine learning performance across all evaluated machine learning tasks.

A Framework for a Capability-driven Evaluation of Scenario Understanding for Multimodal Large Language Models in Autonomous Driving

Multimodal large language models (MLLMs) hold the potential to enhance autonomous driving by combining domain-independent world knowledge with context-specific language guidance. Their integration into autonomous driving systems shows promising results in isolated proof-of-concept applications, while their performance is evaluated on selective singular aspects of perception, reasoning, or planning. To leverage their full potential a systematic framework for evaluating MLLMs in the context of autonomous driving is required. This paper proposes a holistic framework for a capability-driven evaluation of MLLMs in autonomous driving. The framework structures scenario understanding along the four core capability dimensions semantic, spatial, temporal, and physical. They are derived from the general requirements of autonomous driving systems, human driver cognition, and language-based reasoning. It further organises the domain into context layers, processing modalities, and downstream tasks such as language-based interaction and decision-making. To illustrate the framework's applicability, two exemplary traffic scenarios are analysed, grounding the proposed dimensions in realistic driving situations. The framework provides a foundation for the structured evaluation of MLLMs' potential for scenario understanding in autonomous driving.

Adversarial and Reactive Traffic Agents for Realistic Driving Simulation

Despite advancements in perception and planning for autonomous vehicles (AVs), validating their performance remains a significant challenge. The deployment of planning algorithms in real-world environments is often ineffective due to discrepancies between simulations and real traffic conditions. Evaluating AVs planning algorithms in simulation typically involves replaying driving logs from recorded real-world traffic. However, agents replayed from offline data are not reactive, lack the ability to respond to arbitrary AV behavior, and cannot behave in an adversarial manner to test certain properties of the driving policy. Therefore, simulation with realistic and potentially adversarial agents represents a critical task for AV planning software validation. In this work, we aim to review current research efforts in the field of adversarial and reactive traffic agents, with a particular focus on the application of classical and adversarial learning-based techniques. The objective of this work is to categorize existing approaches based on the proposed scenario controllability, defined by the number of reactive or adversarial agents. Moreover, we examine existing traffic simulations with respect to their employed default traffic agents and potential extensions, collate datasets that provide initial driving data, and collect relevant evaluation metrics.

Navigating Dimensionality through State Machines in Automotive System Validation

The increasing automation of vehicles is resulting in the integration of more extensive in-vehicle sensor systems, electronic control units, and software. Additionally, vehicle-to-everything communication is seen as an opportunity to extend automated driving capabilities through information from a source outside the ego vehicle. However, the validation and verification of automated driving functions already pose a challenge due to the number of possible scenarios that can occur for a driving function, which makes it difficult to achieve comprehensive test coverage. Currently, the establishment of Safety Of The Intended Functionality ( SOTIF ) mandates the implementation of scenario-based testing. The introduction of additional external systems through vehicle-to-everything further complicates the problem and increases the scenario space. In this paper, a methodology based on state charts is proposed for modeling the interaction with external systems, which may remain as black boxes. This approach leverages the testability and coverage analysis inherent in state charts by combining them with scenario-based testing. The overall objective is to reduce the space of scenarios necessary for testing a networked driving function and to streamline validation and verification. The utilization of this approach is demonstrated using a simulated signalized intersection with a roadside unit that detects vulnerable road users.

CLIPping the Limits: Finding the Sweet Spot for Relevant Images in Automated Driving Systems Perception Testing

Perception systems, especially cameras, are the eyes of automated driving systems. Ensuring that they function reliably and robustly is therefore an important building block in the automation of vehicles. There are various approaches to test the perception of automated driving systems. Ultimately, however, it always comes down to the investigation of the behavior of perception systems under specific input data. Camera images are a crucial part of the input data. Image data sets are therefore collected for the testing of automated driving systems, but it is non-trivial to find specific images in these data sets. Thanks to recent developments in neural networks, there are now methods for sorting the images in a data set according to their similarity to a prompt in natural language. In order to further automate the provision of search results, we make a contribution by automating the threshold definition in these sorted results and returning only the images relevant to the prompt as a result. Our focus is on preventing false positives and false negatives equally. It is also important that our method is robust and in the case that our assumptions are not fulfilled, we provide a fallback solution.

The Machine Vision Iceberg Explained: Advancing Dynamic Testing by Considering Holistic Environmental Circumstances

Are we heading for an iceberg with the current testing of machine vision? This work delves into the landscape of Machine Vision (MV) testing, which is heavily required in Highly Automated Driving (HAD) systems. Utilizing the metaphorical notion of navigating towards an iceberg, we discuss the potential shortcomings concealed within current testing strategies. We emphasize the urgent need for a deeper understanding of how to deal with the opaque functions of MV in development processes. As overlooked considerations can cost lives. Our main contribution is the hierarchical level model, which we call Granularity Grades. The model encourages a refined exploration of the multi-scaled depths of understanding about the circumstances of environments in which MV is intended to operate. This model aims to provide a holistic overview of all entities that may impact MV functions, ranging from relations of individual entities like object attributes to entire environmental scenes. The application of our model delivers a structured exploration of entities in a specific domain, their relationships and assigning results of a MV-under-test to construct an entity-relationship graph. Through clustering patterns of relations in the graph general MV deficits are arguable. In Summary, our work contributes to a more nuanced and systematized identification of deficits of a MV test object in correlation to holistic circumstances in HAD operating domains.

EfficientPPS: Part-aware Panoptic Segmentation of Transparent Objects for Robotic Manipulation

The use of autonomous robots for assistance tasks in hospitals has the potential to free up qualified staff and im-prove patient care. However, the ubiquity of deformable and transparent objects in hospital settings poses signif-icant challenges to vision-based perception systems. We present EfficientPPS, a neural architecture for part-aware panoptic segmentation that provides robots with semantically rich visual information for grasping and ma-nipulation tasks. We also present an unsupervised data collection and labelling method to reduce the need for human involvement in the training process. EfficientPPS is evaluated on a dataset containing real-world hospital objects and demonstrated to be robust and efficient in grasping transparent transfusion bags with a collaborative robot arm.

Unveiling Objects with SOLA: An Annotation-Free Image Search on the Object Level for Automotive Data Sets

Huge image data sets are the fundament for the development of the perception of automated driving systems. A large number of images is necessary to train robust neural networks that can cope with diverse situations. A sufficiently large data set contains challenging situations and objects. For testing the resulting functions, it is necessary that these situations and objects can be found and extracted from the data set. While it is relatively easy to record a large amount of unlabeled data, it is far more difficult to find demanding situations and objects. However, during the development of perception systems, it must be possible to access challenging data without having to perform lengthy and time-consuming annotations. A developer must therefore be able to search dynamically for specific situations and objects in a data set. Thus, we designed a method which is based on state-of-the-art neural networks to search for objects with certain properties within an image. For the ease of use, the query of this search is described using natural language. To determine the time savings and performance gains, we evaluated our method qualitatively and quantitatively on automotive data sets.

Exploring the Range of Possible Outcomes by means of Logical Scenario Analysis and Reduction for Testing Automated Driving Systems

With the implementation of the new EU regulation 2022/1426 regarding the type-approval of the automated driving system (ADS) of fully automated vehicles, scenario-based testing has gained significant importance in evaluating the performance and safety of advanced driver assistance systems and automated driving systems. However, the exploration and generation of concrete scenarios from a single logical scenario can often lead to a number of similar or redundant scenarios, which may not contribute to the testing goals. This paper focuses on the the goal to reduce the scenario set by clustering concrete scenarios from a single logical scenario. By employing clustering techniques, redundant and uninteresting scenarios can be identified and eliminated, resulting in a representative scenario set. This reduction allows for a more focused and efficient testing process, enabling the allocation of resources to the most relevant and critical scenarios. Furthermore, the identified clusters can provide valuable insights into the scenario space, revealing patterns and potential problems with the system's behavior.

Focus on the Challenges: Analysis of a User-friendly Data Search Approach with CLIP in the Automotive Domain

Handling large amounts of data has become a key for developing automated driving systems. Especially for developing highly automated driving functions, working with images has become increasingly challenging due to the sheer size of the required data. Such data has to satisfy different requirements to be usable in machine learning-based approaches. Thus, engineers need to fully understand their large image data sets for the development and test of machine learning algorithms. However, current approaches lack automatability, are not generic and are limited in their expressiveness. Hence, this paper aims to analyze a state-of-the-art text and image embedding neural network and guides through the application in the automotive domain. This approach enables the search for similar images and the search based on a human understandable text-based description. Our experiments show the automatability and generalizability of our proposed method for handling large data sets in the automotive domain.