We introduce the project ABSOLUT where an ambitious group of partners from industry, public-sector and academia set out to develop an on-demand autonomous shuttle bus for the city of Leipzig, Germany. With ROS at its core and almost three years of joint development, we talk about our key learnings regarding systems design, software and hardware integration and functional safety. We also look at the new regulatory framework for autonomous vehicles (AV) in Germany, our path to receiving a vehicle road license and take a look at driving permission in collaboration with government bodies and its implications for using ROS and ROS2 in commercial AV applications.
