Chevron Left
Back to Introduction to Self-Driving Cars

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Introduction to Self-Driving Cars by University of Toronto

4.7
stars
2,791 ratings

About the Course

Welcome to Introduction to Self-Driving Cars, the first course in University of Toronto’s Self-Driving Cars Specialization. This course will introduce you to the terminology, design considerations and safety assessment of self-driving cars. By the end of this course, you will be able to: - Understand commonly used hardware used for self-driving cars - Identify the main components of the self-driving software stack - Program vehicle modelling and control - Analyze the safety frameworks and current industry practices for vehicle development For the final project in this course, you will develop control code to navigate a self-driving car around a racetrack in the CARLA simulation environment. You will construct longitudinal and lateral dynamic models for a vehicle and create controllers that regulate speed and path tracking performance using Python. You’ll test the limits of your control design and learn the challenges inherent in driving at the limit of vehicle performance. This is an advanced course, intended for learners with a background in mechanical engineering, computer and electrical engineering, or robotics. To succeed in this course, you should have programming experience in Python 3.0, familiarity with Linear Algebra (matrices, vectors, matrix multiplication, rank, Eigenvalues and vectors and inverses), Statistics (Gaussian probability distributions), Calculus and Physics (forces, moments, inertia, Newton's Laws). You will also need certain hardware and software specifications in order to effectively run the CARLA simulator: Windows 7 64-bit (or later) or Ubuntu 16.04 (or later), Quad-core Intel or AMD processor (2.5 GHz or faster), NVIDIA GeForce 470 GTX or AMD Radeon 6870 HD series card or higher, 8 GB RAM, and OpenGL 3 or greater (for Linux computers)....

Top reviews

PS

Jul 29, 2021

This is a great course and also a demanding course for future of automobile industry. This course teachs me a lot about the control system of the car which is used in the autonomous control unit.

AP

Jul 27, 2020

This introduction course really helped me recalling all my basic learning. Really appreciate the Professor. It will definitely help me for enhancing my skills in the field of autonomous driving.

Filter by:

526 - 550 of 558 Reviews for Introduction to Self-Driving Cars

By Virat S

•

Feb 8, 2023

good

By Gurveer D

•

May 20, 2020

nice

By June P

•

Sep 9, 2023

I think the first course provides a great overview of autonomous vehicles and what you may need to know if you want to work in this industry. As a complete beginner in AV, I learned a lot about both the hardware and software sides of AV development and the interviews of various professionals in the AV industry were very interesting. It does cover many topics in broad strokes, so while the course description may say it takes about 40 hours to complete this course, expect to spend at least double

Challenges:

(1) This course assumes you have more than a basic understanding of college-level math, physics and engineering (at least you have to know the classical control theory) and Python/familiarity with using a command line environment. Without these, you won't be able to complete the course.

(2) For me, I had to read on the side (books, internet searches, and Youtube) to understand each module better in order to be able to pass the quizzes and complete the programming assignments. The videos are a great overview but it doesn't provide a lot of details while the quizzes/programming assignment require that you mastered the knowledge.

(3) Lack of support. I signed up for this knowing this is a relatively cheap online course and there will be no real support. But as I was doing the final programming assignment and using end-of-life libraries the assignment requires, I didn't know if anybody else has successfully finished the assignment recently or I was bound to fail. The discussion forum is great, but it's not very active, and the way the forum dashboard is built, it's hard to search for the most recent posts.

AV in and itself is a challenging tech that marries several science/math disciplines, so this can't be an "easy" or "entry" thing to study. However, I wish the first course (out of 4) was more maneageable. Having that said, if you have some knowledge in Math and Python and are interested in getting into AV, I highly recommend this course!

By Ali V

•

Dec 30, 2019

The knowledge about how to implement a PID controller with the high level and low-level controller could not be mentioned enough because there was no exact knowledge about implementing an engine and throttle graph in real applications.

The instructors seemed to want nonlinear MPC controller for the lateral control so that I really hardly worked on to analyze and implement the nonlinear MPC controller but in fact, there is no requirement to implement nonlinear MPC.

Otherwise, the course is really awesome to understand the motion dynamics of a car with an internal combustion engine. Now, I am able to implement both the longitudinal and lateral controller for the car.

By Sachin K

•

Jul 7, 2020

While the course content is good, it is skinny and it leaves a lot to be expected from the learner. That is ok if one is on the campus and there are people you can talk to and ask questions from the teaching assistant staff. Support for this course on the forums is non existent and expecting students to jump into CARLA and write a simulation loop is quite a leap. Especially when debugging CARLA is next to impossible since putting a breakpoint inturn breaks the connection to the server. The course requires way more smaller steps before throwing the student in the deep end.

By Murtaza B

•

Feb 28, 2021

Overall a great introduction course. For those entering the field, it gives a nice high-level view of what particular aspect of the self-driving world you might want to focus on or specialize in. It also gives you a modest intro to the Carla simulator. I took 2 stars off as the challenges in the course were less to do with innovation and more to do with navigating a world of notation inconsistencies, python modules being outdated/not supported as well as mismatch between the theory in lecture notes vs assignment expectations.

By Karsten S

•

Feb 1, 2021

Most of the course was easy to follow and easy to understand. But it requires sometimes additional knowledge of control systems, functional safety and python programmign skills.

The programming assignments are quite tricky and the explanations are not really godd enough to understand the framework (e.g. unprecise definition of the waypoints array, the coordinate system, etc.) without spending extra effort on this. Especially to complete the final exam, a lot of effort has to be spend to get to know environment.

By YJ P

•

Apr 23, 2023

The theory part of the course is good. But the practical part is non-existent until module-4. That too, a lot comes too quickly. Frequent in-course quizzes are too few, several lessons get tested at the end of the week by then most of it is forgotten.

Notes 5-stars

Slides 5-stars

Delivery 5-stars

Accuracy of content 5-stars

By Sergio U S d C

•

Jan 31, 2020

Worse than expected. I learn something, of course, but I was expecting to really learn many things. The assignments are not teachable and I learnt very little with them, but I spent lot of time.

Not much help is provided in the forums by the instructors for passing the tedious assignments.

By Houssam H

•

Nov 6, 2020

Lots of useful information to learn in this course. However, the educational approach used isn't very efficient and you encounter a good number of mistakes or misorganisation, even after years of students signaling them.

By Isira A

•

May 17, 2019

Programming assignments were not structured well. Also lectures only cover a few amounts of details. Overall, the course is good to get an approach to self-driving cars. Thank you.

By Rajesh R

•

Jul 23, 2020

Informative but not much value addition in the post-covid era, in a somewhat hyped industry such as autonomous vehicles

By GOVINDA B

•

Oct 26, 2020

should provide detail about how to implement programming in this course assignments

By Muhammad T

•

May 26, 2021

The Explanation is very basic and does not cover the assignments at all

By Amjad A T

•

Jan 7, 2020

Should have added modelling exercises after each module.

By Kabhilesh G

•

May 21, 2020

the tutor voice wasn't audible rest of them are good.

By MANKARAN S

•

Sep 6, 2020

good stuff, but lacks real explanations

By PAWAR P S

•

May 25, 2020

Excellent teaching but a bit slow

By Sahithi k

•

May 23, 2021

nice ,learnt many skills

By KOKKULA A

•

Aug 22, 2020

Reached my expectations

By Rugved R K

•

May 22, 2022

This course is outdated and requires some good updates in terms of assignments. Content is okay but not much engaging. If you are a complete beginner to the feild this course might help you get started.

By Evgenii S

•

Aug 28, 2023

Poorly designed and supported course. Very complicated material is intoduced in a series of short videos. And after bunch of them you are expected to combine all of this knowledge together to solve real (simulated) problem. Most of the time is spent with external references provided and in discussion forums. People who were helping with assignment explanation are the real heroes.

By Alex P

•

Jan 18, 2022

The overall quality is bad, lacks explanation, repeated useless intro music and introduction and summary takes quite time, which makes the already short video even less informative, the final assignment is already outdated and cannot run with the latest carla simulator, apparently no one is taking care of it.

By Kasra D

•

May 13, 2021

This course is good for you if you already know the concepts and just want to review it. It's a terrible course if you don't know the concepts and want to learn from it. This is true for all courses in this specialization.

By Deekshith V

•

Apr 18, 2021

The course has the worst verification process it's just a waste of time, this ruins the entire experience of the user. Even after several tries I am unable to verify my account or receive the certificate.