Won't you take me to Duckietown? MIT is using rubber ducks to test self-driving tech

In order to make self-driving cars viable, the automotive industry has recruited some of the best software developers, hardware engineers, and mobility analysts humanity has to offer. There's a new community working to push autonomous technology forward, but these researchers aren't human at all. Buried deep within the halls of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) lies a small suburb called Duckietown, a mock-up municipality used to test and develop driverless technology. Populated entirely by rubber ducks riding on autonomous robo-taxis, Duckietown is the culmination of a graduate-level class that could prove invaluable to automakers in the future. "We believe a tool like this will help create a common platform and language for researchers to build on," said CSAIL postdoctoral associate Liam Paull, who co-leads the Duckietown course.