MonoSIM: An open source SIL framework for Ackermann Vehicular Systems with Monocular Vision

A team of five researchers has released MonoSIM, a fully open-source Software-in-the-Loop (SIL) simulation framework designed to accelerate autonomous vehicle research and education. The platform specifically targets Ackermann steering systems—the standard for most cars—and integrates a monocular camera vision system. A key innovation is its use of a sliding window-based lane detection method, which the authors claim requires minimal computational overhead, making the framework accessible for researchers with limited hardware resources. It's built to work seamlessly with small-scale experimental platforms like the XTENTH-CAR, providing a flexible virtual environment for algorithm testing and validation.

To demonstrate its utility, the team implemented and compared two common control strategies within the framework: Model Predictive Control (MPC) and Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) algorithms. The results, published in the IEEE 12th International Conference on Automation, Robotics and Applications (2026), confirm MonoSIM provides a reliable environment for verifying autonomous driving algorithms. The authors position it as an ideal tool not only for academic research and multi-agent system studies but also for low-cost Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) development, lowering the barrier to entry for advanced robotics work. All code is publicly available, encouraging community adoption and further development.