Edoardo Ghignone

Last Name

Ghignone

First Name

Edoardo

ORCID

0000-0003-3843-2661

Organisational unit

01225 - D-ITET Zentr. f. projektbasiertes Lernen / D-ITET Center for Project-Based Learning

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Publications 1 - 10 of 15

Learning-Based On-Track System Identification for Scaled Autonomous Racing in Under a Minute
Dikici, Onur; Ghignone, Edoardo; Hu, Cheng; et al. (2025)
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
Accurate tire modeling is crucial for optimizing autonomous racing vehicles, as State-of-the-Art (SotA) model-based techniques rely on precise knowledge of the vehicle's parameters, yet system identification in dynamic racing conditions is challenging due to varying track and tire conditions. Traditional methods require extensive operational ranges, often impractical in racing scenarios. Machine Learning (ML)-based methods, while improving performance, struggle with generalization and depend on accurate initialization. This paper introduces a novel on-track system identification algorithm, incorporating a Neural Network (NN) for error correction, which is then employed for traditional system identification with virtually generated data. Crucially, the process is iteratively reapplied, with tire parameters updated at each cycle, leading to notable improvements in accuracy in tests on a scaled vehicle. Experiments show that it is possible to learn a tire model without prior knowledge with only 30 seconds of driving data, and 3 seconds of training time. This method demonstrates greater one-step prediction accuracy than the baseline Nonlinear Least Squares (NLS) method under noisy conditions, achieving a 3.3x lower Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), and yields tire models with comparable accuracy to traditional steady-state system identification. Furthermore, unlike steady-state methods requiring large spaces and specific experimental setups, the proposed approach identifies tire parameters directly on a race track in dynamic racing environments.
Model- and Acceleration-based Pursuit Controller for High-Performance Autonomous Racing
Becker, Jonathan; Imholz, Nadine; Schwarzenbach, Luca; et al. (2023)
2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Autonomous racing is a research field gaining large popularity, as it pushes autonomous driving algorithms to their limits and serves as a catalyst for general autonomous driving. For scaled autonomous racing platforms, the computational constraint and complexity often limit the use of Model Predictive Control (MPC). As a consequence, geometric controllers are the most frequently deployed controllers. They prove to be performant while yielding implementation and operational simplicity. Yet, they inherently lack the incorporation of model dynamics, thus limiting the race car to a velocity domain where tire slip can be neglected. This paper presents Model- and Acceleration-based Pursuit (MAP) a high-performance model-based trajectory tracking controller that preserves the simplicity of geometric approaches while leveraging tire dynamics. The proposed algorithm allows accurate tracking of a trajectory at unprecedented velocities compared to State-of-the-Art (SotA) geometric controllers. The MAP controller is experimentally validated and outperforms the reference geometric controller four-fold in terms of lateral tracking error, yielding a tracking error of 0.055 m at tested speeds up to 11 m/s on a scaled racecar. Code: https://github.com/ETH-PBL/MAP-Controller.
CR3DT: Camera-RADAR Fusion for 3D Detection and Tracking
Baumann, Nicolas; Baumgartner, Michael; Ghignone, Edoardo; et al. (2024)
2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
To enable self-driving vehicles accurate detection and tracking of surrounding objects is essential. While Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) sensors have set the benchmark for high-performance systems, the appeal of camera-only solutions lies in their cost-effectiveness. Notably, despite the prevalent use of Radio Detection and Ranging (RADAR) sensors in automotive systems, their potential in 3D detection and tracking has been largely disregarded due to data sparsity and measurement noise. As a recent development, the combination of RADARs and cameras is emerging as a promising solution. This paper presents Camera-RADAR 3D Detection and Tracking (CR3DT), a camera-RADAR fusion model for 3D object detection, and Multi-Object Tracking (MOT). Building upon the foundations of the State-of-the-Art (SotA) camera-only BEVDet architecture, CR3DT demonstrates substantial improvements in both detection and tracking capabilities, by incorporating the spatial and velocity information of the RADAR sensor. Experimental results demonstrate an absolute improvement in detection performance of 5.3% in mean Average Precision (mAP) and a 14.9% increase in Average Multi-Object Tracking Accuracy (AMOTA) on the nuScenes dataset when leveraging both modalities. CR3DT bridges the gap between high-performance and cost-effective perception systems in autonomous driving, by capitalizing on the ubiquitous presence of RADAR in automotive applications. The code is available at: https://github.com/ETH-PBL/CR3DT.
Predictive Spliner: Data-Driven Overtaking in Autonomous Racing Using Opponent Trajectory Prediction
Baumann, Nicolas; Ghignone, Edoardo; Hu, Cheng; et al. (2025)
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
Head-to-head racing against opponents is a challenging and emerging topic in the domain of autonomous racing. We propose Predictive Spliner, a data-driven overtaking planner designed to enhance competitive performance by anticipating opponent behavior. Using Gaussian Process (GP) regression, the method learns and predicts the opponent's trajectory, enabling the ego vehicle to calculate safe and effective overtaking maneuvers. Experimentally validated on a 1:10 scale autonomous racing platform, Predictive Spliner outperforms commonly employed overtaking algorithms by overtaking opponents at up to 83.1% of its own speed, being on average 8.4% faster than the previous best-performing method. Additionally, it achieves an average success rate of 84.5%, which is 47.6% higher than the previous best-performing method. The proposed algorithm maintains computational efficiency with a Central Processing Unit (CPU) load of 22.79% and a computation time of 8.4 ms, evaluated on a Commercial off-the-Shelf (CotS) Intel i7-1165G7, making it suitable for real-time robotic applications. These results highlight the potential of Predictive Spliner to enhance the performance and safety of autonomous racing vehicles.
Residual Koopman Model Predictive Control for Enhanced Vehicle Dynamics with Small On-Track Data Input
Fu, Yonghao; Hu, Cheng; Xiong, Haokun; et al. (2025)
In vehicle trajectory tracking tasks, the simplest approach is the Pure Pursuit (PP) Control. However, this single-point preview tracking strategy fails to consider vehicle model constraints, compromising driving safety. Model Predictive Control (MPC) as a widely adopted control method, optimizes control actions by incorporating mechanistic models and physical constraints. While its control performance critically depends on the accuracy of vehicle modeling. Traditional vehicle modeling approaches face inherent trade-offs between capturing nonlinear dynamics and maintaining computational efficiency, often resulting in reduced control performance. To address these challenges, this paper proposes Residual Koopman Model Predictive Control (RKMPC) framework. This method uses two linear MPC architecture to calculate control inputs: a Linear Model Predictive Control (LMPC) computes the baseline control input based on the vehicle kinematic model, and a neural network-based RKMPC calculates the compensation input. The final control command is obtained by adding these two components. This design preserves the reliability and interpretability of traditional mechanistic model while achieving performance optimization through residual modeling. This method has been validated on the Carsim-Matlab joint simulation platform and a physical 1:10 scale F1TENTH racing car. Experimental results show that RKMPC requires only 20% of the training data needed by traditional Koopman Model Predictive Control (KMPC) while delivering superior tracking performance. Compared to traditional LMPC, RKMPC reduces lateral error by 11.7%-22.1%, decreases heading error by 8.9%-15.8%, and improves front-wheel steering stability by up to 27.6%. The implementation code is available at: https://github.com/ZJU-DDRX/Residual Koopman.
R-CARLA: High-Fidelity Sensor Simulations with Interchangeable Dynamics for Autonomous Racing
Brunner, Maurice; Ghignone, Edoardo; Baumann, Nicolas; et al. (2025)
2025 IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium (IV)
Autonomous racing has emerged as a crucial testbed for autonomous driving algorithms, necessitating a simulation environment for both vehicle dynamics and sensor behavior. Striking the right balance between vehicle dynamics and sensor accuracy is crucial for pushing vehicles to their performance limits. However, autonomous racing developers often face a trade-off between accurate vehicle dynamics and high-fidelity sensor simulations. This paper introduces R-CARLA, an enhancement of the CARLA simulator that supports holistic full-stack testing, from perception to control, using a single system. By seamlessly integrating accurate vehicle dynamics with sensor simulations, opponents simulation as NPCs, and a pipeline for creating digital twins from real-world robotic data, R-CARLA empowers researchers to push the boundaries of autonomous racing development. Furthermore, it is developed using CARLA's rich suite of sensor simulations. Our results indicate that incorporating the proposed digital-twin framework into R-CARLA enables more realistic full-stack testing, demonstrating a significant reduction in the Sim-to-Real gap of car dynamics simulation by 42% and by 82% in the case of sensor simulation across various testing scenarios.
RLPP: A Residual Method for Zero-Shot Real-World Autonomous Racing on Scaled Platforms
Ghignone, Edoardo; Baumann, Nicolas; Hu, Cheng; et al. (2025)
2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Autonomous racing presents a complex environment requiring robust controllers capable of making rapid decisions under dynamic conditions. While traditional controllers based on tire models are reliable, they often demand extensive tuning or system identification. Reinforcement Learning (RL) methods offer significant potential due to their ability to learn directly from interaction, yet they typically suffer from the Sim-to-Real gap, where policies trained in simulation fail to perform effectively in the real world. In this paper, we propose RLPP, a residual RL framework that enhances a Pure Pursuit (PP) controller with an RL-based residual. This hybrid approach leverages the reliability and interpretability of PP while using RL to fine-tune the controller's performance in real-world scenarios. Extensive testing on the F1TENTH platform demonstrates that RLPP improves lap times of the baseline controllers by up to 6.37 %, closing the gap to the State-of-the-Art (SotA) methods by more than 52 % and providing reliable performance in zero-shot real-world deployment, overcoming key challenges associated with the Sim-to-Real transfer and reducing the performance gap from simulation to reality by more than 8 -fold when compared to the baseline RL controller. The RLPP framework is made available as an open-source tool, encouraging further exploration and advancement in autonomous racing research. The code is available at: www.github.com/forzaeth/rlpp.
DTR: Delaunay Triangulation-based Racing for Scaled Autonomous Racing
Tognoni, Luca; Reichlin, Neil; Ghignone, Edoardo; et al. (2025)
2025 10th International Workshop on Advances in Sensors and Interfaces (IWASI)
Reactive controllers for autonomous racing avoid the computational overhead of full See-Think-Act autonomy stacks by directly mapping sensor input to control actions, eliminating the need for localization and planning. A widely used reactive strategy is Follow-The-Gap (FTG), which identifies gaps in Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) range measurements and steers toward a chosen one. While effective on fully bounded circuits, FTG fails in scenarios with incomplete boundaries and is prone to driving into dead-ends, known as FTG-traps. This work presents Delaunay Triangulation-based Racing (DTR), a reactive controller that combines Delaunay triangulation, from raw LiDAR readings, with track boundary segmentation to extract a centerline while systematically avoiding FTG-traps. Compared to FTG, the proposed method achieves lap times that are 70% faster and approaches the performance of map-dependent methods. With a latency of 8.95 ms and Central Processing Unit (CPU) usage of only 38.85% on the robot’s OnBoard Computer (OBC), DTR is real-time capable and has been successfully deployed and evaluated in field experiments.
Drive Fast, Learn Faster: On-Board RL for High Performance Autonomous Racing
Hildisch, Benedict; Ghignone, Edoardo; Baumann, Nicolas; et al. (2025)
Reinforcement Learning Journal
Autonomous racing presents unique challenges due to its non-linear dynamics, the high speed involved, and the critical need for real-time decision-making under dynamic and unpredictable conditions. Most traditional Reinforcement Learning (RL) approaches rely on extensive simulation-based pre-training, which faces crucial challenges in transfer effectively to real-world environments. This paper introduces a robust on-board RL framework for autonomous racing, designed to eliminate the dependency on simulation-based pre-training enabling direct real-world adaptation. The proposed system introduces a refined Soft Actor-Critic (SAC) algorithm, leveraging a residual RL structure to enhance classical controllers in real-time by integrating multi-step Temporal-Difference (TD) learning, an asynchronous training pipeline, and Heuristic Delayed Reward Adjustment (HDRA) to improve sample efficiency and training stability. The framework is validated through extensive experiments on the F1TENTH racing platform, where the residual RL controller consistently outperforms the baseline controllers and achieves up to an 11.5 % reduction in lap times compared to the State-of-the-Art (SotA) with only 20 min of training. Additionally, an End-to-End (E2E) RL controller trained without a baseline controller surpasses the previous best results with sustained on-track learning. These findings position the framework as a robust solution for high-performance autonomous racing and a promising direction for other real-time, dynamic autonomous systems.
TinyCenterSpeed: Efficient Center-Based Object Detection for Autonomous Racing
Neil Reichlin; Nicolas Baumann; Edoardo Ghignone; et al. (2025)
Perception within autonomous driving is nearly synonymous with Neural Networks (NNs). Yet, the domain of autonomous racing is often characterized by scaled, computationally limited robots used for cost-effectiveness and safety. For this reason, opponent detection and tracking systems typically resort to traditional computer vision techniques due to computational constraints. This paper introduces TinyCenterSpeed, a streamlined adaptation of the seminal CenterPoint method, optimized for real-time performance on 1:10 scale autonomous racing platforms. This adaptation is viable even on OBCs powered solely by Central Processing Units (CPUs), as it incorporates the use of an external Tensor Processing Unit (TPU). We demonstrate that, compared to Adaptive Breakpoint Detector (ABD), the current State-of-the-Art (SotA) in scaled autonomous racing, TinyCenterSpeed not only improves detection and velocity estimation by up to 61.38% but also supports multi-opponent detection and estimation. It achieves real-time performance with an inference time of just 7.88 ms on the TPU, significantly reducing CPU utilization 8.3-fold.

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Edoardo Ghignone

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