Simulations are key steps in the design, implementation, and verification of autonomous vehicles (AV). Parallel to this, typical simulation tools fail to integrate the entirety of the aspects related to the complexity of AV applications, such as data communication delay, security, and the integration of software/hardware-in-the-loop and other simulation tools. This work proposes a SmartData-based middleware to integrate AV simulators and external tools. The interface models the data used on a simulator and creates an intermediary layer between the simulator and the external tools by defining the inputs and outputs as SmartData. A message bus is used for communication between SmartData following their Interest relations. Messages are exchanged following a specific protocol. Nevertheless, the architecture presented is agnostic of protocol. Moreover, we present a data-centric AV design integrated into the middleware. The design considers the standardization of the data interfaces between AV components, including sensing, perception, planning, decision, and actuation. Therefore, the presented design promotes a transparent integration of the AV simulation with other simulators (e.g., network simulators), cloud services, fault injection mechanisms, digital twins, and hardware-in-the-loop scenarios. Moreover, the design allows for transparent, runtime component replacement and time synchronization, the modularization of the vehicle components, and the addition of security aspects in the simulation. We present a case-study application with an AV simulation using CARLA, and we measure the end-to-end delay and overhead incurred in the simulation by our middleware. An increase in the end-to-end delay was measured once data communication was not acknowledged in the original scenario, and data was assumed to be ready for processing with no communication delay between sensors, decision-making, and actuation units.

仿真是自动驾驶汽车 (AV) 设计、实施和验证的关键步骤。与此同时，典型的仿真工具无法集成与 AV 应用复杂性相关的全部方面，例如数据通信延迟、安全性以及软件/硬件在环和其他仿真工具的集成。这项工作提出了一种基于 SmartData 的中间件来集成 AV 模拟器和外部工具。该接口对模拟器上使用的数据进行建模，并通过将输入和输出定义为 SmartData，在模拟器和外部工具之间创建中间层。消息总线用于按照兴趣关系在 SmartData 之间进行通信。消息按照特定协议进行交换。然而，所提出的架构与协议无关。此外，我们提出了一种集成到中间件中的以数据为中心的 AV 设计。该设计考虑了自动驾驶组件之间数据接口的标准化，包括传感、感知、规划、决策和驱动。因此，所提出的设计促进了 AV 仿真与其他模拟器（例如网络模拟器）、云服务、故障注入机制、数字孪生和硬件在环场景的透明集成。此外，该设计允许透明的运行时组件更换和时间同步、车辆组件的模块化以及在模拟中添加安全方面。我们展示了一个使用 CARLA 进行 AV 模拟的案例研究应用程序，并测量了中间件在模拟过程中产生的端到端延迟和开销。一旦在原始场景中未确认数据通信，就会测量到端到端延迟的增加，并且假设数据已准备好进行处理，传感器、决策和执行单元之间没有通信延迟。