RAMACoDrive: A Real-Time Asynchronous Framework for Cooperative Perception With Realistic V2X Communication

Recent advances in cooperative driving have garnered significant attention, as it is believed to have greater potential than single-vehicle systems in complex environments. However, gaps in current research frameworks impede its further development. Dataset-based frameworks provide a limited perspective, failing to capture the dynamic, asynchronous, and interactive complexities of the real world. Simulation-based frameworks often employ synchronous implementation and oversimplified communication models, impeding meaningful real-time performance evaluation in asynchronous environments. To this end, we propose RAMACoDrive, a novel real-time asynchronous framework for cooperative perception research. RAMACoDrive implements complete process separation, allowing agents and their internal components to operate asynchronously and independently. It uniquely integrates hardware-in-the-loop V2X communication using an external device for realistic data forwarding. Furthermore, RAMACoDrive incorporates an asynchronous online evaluation method with real-time performance metrics, enabling comprehensive evaluation beyond mere accuracy. Through experiments centered on cooperative 3D object detection, we demonstrate its effectiveness in revealing the impact of real-world asynchronous effects and communication constraints. RAMACoDrive provides a valuable and realistic testbed for cooperative perception algorithms and helps to advance the deployment of practical applications. The code will be released on our GitHub repository.