Modern cell phone hardware, due to its integrated peripherals, provides a low cost intelligent controller for use in the navigation of an Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV). Most commercial AGV’s use proprietary hardware which is expensive to replace and also difficult to maintain. Using industrial hardware components combined with Android mobile platforms could provide a low-cost alternative. This would be easier to maintain, using existing in-house factory maintenance knowledge. A prototype AGV was designed and developed based on an integrated system between an industrial Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) and an Android operating system mobile platform. This system utilises the mobile platforms integrated Global Position System (GPS) or video camera as tools for navigation. Experimental tests were performed to determine whether the prototype can navigate a predefined course by making use of GPS and camera line following algorithms. The accuracy of the line following algorithm was influenced by the speed at which the research AGV moved. Mounting the Android camera higher above the ground improved the vision and therefore accuracy of the algorithm. The GPS algorithm successfully navigated to various waypoints. The accuracy of the implemented GPS unit on the Android device is its limitation. The research unit was only capable of reaching a waypoint consistently within a three-metre radius.

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This thesis presents a proposed methodology for the field evaluation of the efficiency, energy, environmental, and safety impacts of traffic-flow improvement projects. The methodology utilizes Global Positioning System (GPS) second-by-second speed measurements using fairly inexpensive GPS units to quantify the impacts of traffic-flow improvement projects on the efficiency, energy, and safety of a transportation network. It should be noted that the proposed methodology is incapable of isolating the effects of induced demand and is not suitable for estimating long-term impacts of such projects that involve changes in land-use. Instead, the proposed methodology can quantify changes in traffic behavior and changes in travel demand. This thesis, also, investigates the ability of various data smoothing techniques to remove such erroneous data without significantly altering the underlying vehicle speed profile. Several smoothing techniques are then applied to the acceleration profile, including data trimming, Simple Exponential smoothing, Double Exponential smoothing, Epanechnikov Kernel smoothing, Robust Kernel smoothing, and Robust Simple Exponential Smoothing. The results of the analysis indicate that the application of Robust smoothing (Kernel of Exponential) to vehicle acceleration levels, combined with a technique to minimize the difference between the integral of the raw and smoothed acceleration profiles, removes invalid GPS data without significantly altering the underlying measured speed profile The methodology has been successfully applied to two case studies provided insights as to the potential benefits of coordinating traffic signals across jurisdictional boundaries. More importantly two case studies demonstrate the feasibility of using GPS second-by-second speed measurements for the evaluation of operational-level traffic flow improvement projects. To identify any statistically significant differences in traffic demand along two case study corridors before and after traffic signal condition, tube counts and turning counts were collected and analyzed using ANOVA technique. The ANOVA results of turning volume counts indicated that there is no statistically significant difference in turning volumes between the before and after conditions. Furthermore, the ANOVA results of tube counts also confirmed that there did not appear to be a statistically significant difference (5 percent level of significance) in the tube counts between the before and after conditions. / Ph. D.

Ionospheric phase delays of radio signals from Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites have been used to compute ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC). An extended Chapman profle model is used to estimate the electron density profles and TEC. The Chapman profle that can be used to predict TEC over the mid-latitudes only applies during day time. To model night time TEC variability, a polynomial function is fitted to the night time peak electron density profles derived from the online International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) 2001. The observed and predicted TEC and its variability have been used to study ionospheric in°uence on Radio Astronomy in South Africa region. Di®erential phase delays of the radio signals from Radio Astronomy sources have been simulated using TEC. Using the simulated phase delays, the azimuth and declination o®sets of the radio sources have been estimated. Results indicate that, pointing errors of the order of miliarcseconds (mas) are likely if the ionospheric phase delays are not corrected for. These delays are not uniform and vary over a broad spectrum of timescales. This implies that fast frequency (referencing) switching, closure phases and fringe ¯tting schemes for ionospheric correction in astrometry are not the best option as they do not capture the real state of the ionosphere especially if the switching time is greater than the ionospheric TEC variability. However, advantage can be taken of the GPS satellite data available at intervals of a second from the GPS receiver network in South Africa to derive parameters which could be used to correct for the ionospheric delays. Furthermore GPS data can also be used to monitor the occurrence of scintillations, (which might corrupt radio signals) especially for the proposed, Square Kilometer Array (SKA) stations closer to the equatorial belt during magnetic storms and sub-storms. A 10 minute snapshot of GPS data recorded with the Hermanus [34:420 S, 19:220 E ] dual frequency receiver on 2003-04-11 did not show the occurrence of scintillations. This time scale is however too short and cannot be representative. Longer time scales; hours, days, seasons are needed to monitor the occurrence of scintillations.

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 18-21, 2004 / Town & Country Resort, San Diego, California / Hardware architecture and design details of a multi-channel GPS signal simulator with highly flexibility is presented, while the dynamic performance objectives and the requirements on the hardware architecture are discussed. The IF part of the simulator is implemented almost entirely in the digital domain by use of a field programmable gate array (FPGA), which mainly include C/A code generators, carrier generators, spreaders, and BPSK modulators. The results of testing the proposed simulator hardware architecture at IF with the help of a GPS receiver are presented.