Self-Driving Cars with Duckietown: learn the technology of autonomous vehicles

Self-Driving Cars with Duckietown

The world’s first robot autonomy massive open online course with hardware

Self-Driving Cars with Duckietown Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)

Self-Driving Cars with Duckietown is the world’s first hardware-based massive open online course (MOOC) in AI robotics.

Created in collaboration with ETH Zürich, the University of Montreal, and the Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago (TTIC), Self-Driving Cars with Duckietown is free to enroll in.

Hosted on the edX platform, Self-Driving Cars with Duckietown is a “grand tour” of robot autonomy: the science and technology behind enabling machines to make their own decisions and accomplish broadly defined tasks such as lane following, object detection, planning, and more.

Self-driving cars with Duckietown covers from the theory, to the implementation, to the deployment: in simulation, as well as on Duckiebots (real-world model autonomous vehicles).

Starting from the 2025 edition, Self-Driving Cars with Duckietown now supports virtual Duckiebots: digital twins of physical robots, for an even more accessible entry to the beautiful world of physical AI.

"I’m thrilled that ETH, with UMontreal, the Duckietown Foundation, and the Toyota Technological Institute in Chicago, are collaborating to bring this course in self-driving cars and robotics to the 35 million learners on edX. This emerging technology has the potential to completely change the way we live and travel, and the course provides a unique opportunity to get in on the ground floor of understanding and using the technology powering autonomous vehicles."

"The new NVIDIA Jetson Nano is the ultimate starter AI computer for educators and students to teach and learn AI at an incredibly affordable price. Duckietown and its EdX MOOC are leveraging Jetson to take hands-on experimentation and understanding of AI and autonomous machines to the next level."

"The Duckietown educational platform provides a hands-on, scaled down, accessible version of real world autonomous systems. Integrating NVIDIA’s Jetson Nano power in Duckietown enables unprecedented access to state-of-the-art compute solutions for learning autonomy."

MOOC Factsheet

Prerequisites

What you will learn

(Archived Self-Driving Cars with Duckietown (daffy edition) 2023-24)

Robot Perception: Duckiebots detect lane marking on the fly and use mathematical models of their camera and environment to estimate their position and orientation in the lane.

Duckiebot Detection: driving in Duckietown is fun but safety should always be paramount. DuckieBots can detect other vehicles and estimate their relative poses to avoid collisions.

Robot Planning: as Duckietowns grow bigger, smart Duckiebots plan their path in town. Traffic signs at intersections provide landmarks to localize on the global map and determine next turns.

Pedestrian detection: there are many obstacles in Duckietown – some move and some don’t. Being able to detect pedestrians (duckies) is important to guarantee safe driving.

"Autonomous driving is one of the most active AI fields, and this course uniquely tackles online learning for self-driving vehicles by pairing its content with a purchasable driving robot. The course itself digs deep into controlling your Duckiebot, such as how to drive in lanes, stop at intersections, and detect and avoid crashing into objects."

"This excellent edX course from ETH Zurich will guide you through the process of programming and building self-driving cars using the Duckietown Robotic Ecosystem, an open-source platform created by MIT’s CSAIL. Unlike all other courses on the list, this one will teach you to build a basic but actual self-driving car."

"If you want to learn about autonomous vehicles and how they make a significant impact on society, this course from edX is an excellent option for you. Taking part in this program will take you on a learning journey of planning and developing self-driving vehicles. You will begin learning from a box of components used in auto-creation and then move on to create your scaled self-driving car that drives autonomously in your living room."