Autopilot Training Guide

The autopilot is a deep learning model. To be more specific, it is a convolutional neural network model. This model takes in images captured by the camera, then predict driving actions (throttle and steering) accordingly.

To train such a model, we need to feed human operators' driving data to it. The trained model is expected to imitate its human teachers' driving behaviors. Basically, this is a behavioral cloning approach.

Any computer with PyTorch installed can be used to train such a model. So, theoretically, the Raspberry Pi can be used for the training purpose. However, we strongly recommend you to setup a dedicated model training server to train your autopilot model. For the computational power of a Raspberry Pi is quite limited.

The following steps will guide you through the entire process of autopilot training on a server computer. You can perform all the operations on the Raspberry Pi without physically interact with the server computer.

For those intend to train models on your Raspberry Pis, please ignore the data transferring steps.

The following steps assume that your server is sharing the same network as the Raspberry Pi. So, the first 3 segments in the ip address on both machines should be the same. In our case, they both start with 192.168.0..

1 Transfer Collected Data to Server

  • Usage:
rsync -rv --progress --partial <data_path_on_rpi> <username>@<server_ip_address>:<data_path_on_server>
  • Example:
rsync -rv --progress --partial ~/BearCart/data/2024-08-13-15-05 user@192.168.0.123:~/BearCart/data/  # example

2 Run Training Script

2.1 Remotely Log In to Server via SSH

  • Usage:
ssh <username>@<server_ip_address>
  • Example:
ssh user@192.168.0.123

You'll need to enter the correct password to log in.

2.2 Training with Specified Data

  • Usage:
python ~/BearCart/scripts/train.py <data_directory_name>
  • Example:
python ~/BearCart/scripts/train.py 2024-08-13-15-05

The trained model will be saved at:

<model_path>/DonkeyNet-15epochs-0.001lr.pth

For example:

~/BearCart/data/2024-08-13-15-05/DonkeyNet-15epochs-0.001lr.pth

And, the model is stored on the server computer now.

Now you can log out from the server by typing exit in terminal. Or press Ctrl+d on keyboard.

3 Transfer Autopilot Model to Raspberry Pi

Make sure you are back to Raspberry Pi.

  • Usage:
rsync -rv --progress --partial <username>@<server_ip_address>:<model_path_on_server> <model_dir_path>

-Example:

rsync -rv --progress --partial user@192.168.0.123:~/BearCart/data/2024-08-13-15-05/DonkeyNet-15epochs-0.001lr.pth ~/BearCart/models/