This is the webpage for the 2022 IFT6757 Autonomous Vehicles class at l’Université de Montréal which is informally known as “Duckietown”.

Quicklinks

• The history of Duckietown

• The Challenges Server

• The Duckiebook Documentation

• The official class description for IFT6757

• The tentative class schedule

For students interested in taking the class

I wish I could take everyone, but due to space and other considerations there limited spots available for the class this year. If you would like to be one of them, please fill out the application form by the end of day Friday Sept. 9, 2021. Please include anything that might help you stand out. This class is a collaborative learning experience and we are looking for a good mix of student backgrounds.

I invite everyone to come to the first class which will be held in Z-260 Pavilon Claire-McNicoll on Wed Sept. 7 @ 11:30

Decisions about admissions will be made following the first class and the successful applicatants will hopefully be notified by Sunday Sept. 11 by email.

Once you have been admitted you should contact Céline Bégin, she will have the list of admitted students. If you are worried that you may not be admitted please register for a backup course.

There are no “prerequisites” for the course but a strong programming background, knowledge of the Linux command line, as well as any knowledge of basic probabilities, computer vision, or control will all help.

If you are not sure whether or not you would like to take the class I would encourage you to:

• Have a look at the project website
• Read below about what makes this a special class.

What makes this a special class?

This class is unique in many ways.

Class philosophy

The best engineers and scientists are the ones who have solid theoretical foundations, as well as practical experience in the domain of interest.

In autonomous robotics, it is important to get the “feeling” of what actually makes a robot work, how the success or failure depends on subtle interaction between many hardware and software components.

To this end, it is necessary to study a complete system like Duckietown. The materials might be cheap, the appearance might be playful, but the complexity of behaviors and representations is comparable to those of deployed robotic systems.

This class is a collaborative learning experience about robotics. The fundamental theme of the class is that embodied systems are a special brand of AI system that has special real-world constraints. The only way to really feel those constraints is to experiment with the physical system. This year all the students in the class will work together towards one common goal - building a new capability for the Duckiebots in Duckietown.

A Personalized Experience

Each student gets their own personal Duckiebot to build and love.

Your code can live on

This class is a living thing, it will never be the same twice. The best projects from each year will be added to or replace existing code in the duckietown codebase. If you do a good job, your project will be what next year’s students use and try and improve upon.