iDrive Programming Language COMS W4115 Project Proposal Parag Jain pj2171 columbia edu 1 Introduction Cars equipped with a system that is capable of driving from one point to another without input from a human operator have got significant attention from academic commercial defense and government sectors over the past few decades Early prototypes date as far back as late 1970s however important progress only came to be seen in the late 2000s through programs like DARPA Grand Challenge competitions and Google Driverless Car project Some proposed systems depend on infrastructure based guidance systems while more advanced systems propose to simulate human perception and decision making during steering of a car via advanced computer software linked to a range of sensors such as cameras radar and GPS Some of the advantages of Driverless Cars include managing traffic flow to increase road capacity avoid accidents by eliminating driver error relieving vehicle occupants from driving and navigating chores transporting loads in dangerous zones such as battlefields and reducing costs of employing drivers 2 iDrive Programming Language iDrive is a high level programming language that provides basic constructs to develop algorithms for cars to drive without a need for human intervention Currently no such language exists and given the complexity of the paradigm iDrive is extremely useful since it is specialized to accomplish this challenging task The primary focus of iDrive is the abstraction and reduction of non essential or monotonous tasks so that the researchers no longer need to spend time specifying the characteristics of driving and just need to focus on creating intelligent algorithms for developing fully autonomous cars iDrive provides the researcher with a rich set of tools that may be used intuitively to implement algorithms for driving cars Every effort has been made to ensure that the language is intuitive and easy to read and understand 1 3 Language Outline iDrive uses syntax based on that of C and Java because the idea is to create a development environment that is relatively familiar to those who already know C and Java hence reducing the learning curve for transitioning to iDrive 3 1 Simple Types int Used to hold integer data decimal Used to hold decimal data string Used to hold string data boolean Used to hold true false data 3 2 Complex Types Segment Represents a segment out of the driving directions Heading An attribute of a Segment that determines usually direction altering action that the car must perform at the start of a Segment E g TurnRight TurnLeft Proceed BearRight BearLeft SwitchToRightLane SwitchToLeftLane Distance An attribute of a Segment that determines how far the car must drive before reaching the next Segment TargetSpeed An attribute of a Segment that determines how fast the car may drive along the Segment Directions An array of segments which form the driving directions from source position to destination position in the initial implementation data for this variable is read from a tab delimited text file Position Repesents position in terms of geographic latitude and longitude 3 3 Control Statements To control a program s flow the following control statements are supported much like in C and Java while loop To repeatedly execute a block of code until a certain condition is met for loop To repeatedly execute a block of code until a certain condition is met if else condition To conditionally execute a block of code 2 3 4 Built in Functions Here are the initially proposed keywords and frequently used built in functions function To create user defined functions TurnRight To turn the car right TurnLeft To turn the car left Proceed To make the car proceed forward or to move the car as per the Heading Reverse To reverse the car Stop To stop the car as soon as possible SlowDown To slow down the car Accelerate To accelerate the car BearRight To make the car bear right BearLeft To make the car bear left SwitchToRightLane To make the car switch to the adjacent right lane SwitchToLeftLane To make the car switch to the adjacent left lane IsClearToGo To check if the car is clear to proceed interrogates sensors attached to the car Park To make the car park ReadDirections To read directions from a tab delimited text file 3 5 Other Features To enclose a group of statements in a procedure or function To enclose a group of arguments for a function To separate a statement from another To separate arguments within a function All characters between and are treated as comments To include inline comments Mathematical operators Relational operators Logical operators 4 Representative Program Here is a representative program that demonstrates a simple implementation of Drive algortihm which reads the driving directions passed to it by the navigation system in the initial implementation driving directions are read from a tab delimited text file and transports the car from source position to destination position 3 The init function must always be present It is the entry point for a iDrive program much like main in C and Java function init string directionsFile directions txt Directions d Position srcPosition Position destPosition d srcPosition destPosition ReadDirections directionsFile Drive srcPosition destPosition Directions This is a user defined function that transports the car from source position to destination position given the driving directions function Drive srcPosition destPosition Directions Current position of the car Position CurrentPosition srcPosition Current speed of the car decimal CurrentSpeed 0 0 i 0 while i Directions length Current Segment to execute Segment CurrentSegment Directions i Distance covered along current Segment decimal DistanceCovered 0 0 while CurrentSegment Distance DistanceCovered IsClearToGo will take into account pedestrians traffic signals and other traffic on the roadway by interrogating sensors attached to the car if IsClearToGo Accelerate will increase the car speed if CurrentSpeed CurrentSegment TargetSpeed It will also update the CurrentSpeed 4 Accelerate Proceed will move the car forward or as per CurrentSegment Heading if this event hasn t already taken place It will also update the CurrentPosition and DistanceCovered accoring to CurrentSpeed Proceed else SlowDown if CurrentPosition destPosition Stop Park i 5
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