Methods for estimating vehicle-terrain interaction parameters for small scale robotic vehicles have been formulated and evaluated using both simulation and experimental studies. A model basis was developed, guided by experimental studies with an iRobot PackBot. The intention was to demonstrate whether a nominally instrumented robotic vehicle could be used as a test platform for generating data for vehicle-terrain parameter estimation. A comprehensive skid-steered model was found to be sensitive enough to distinguish between various forms of unknown terrains. This simulation study also verified that the Bekker model for large scale vehicles adopted for this research was applicable to the small scale robotic vehicle used in this work. This fact was also confirmed by estimating coefficients of friction and establishing their dependence on forward velocity and turning radius as the vehicle traverses different terrains. On establishing that mobility measurements for this robotic were sufficiently sensitive, it was found that estimates could be made of key dynamic variables and vehicle-terrain interaction parameters. Four main contributions are described for reliably and robustly using PackBot data for vehicle-terrain property estimation. These estimation methods should contribute to efforts in improving mobility of small scale tracked vehicles on uncertain terrains. The approach is embodied in a multi-tiered algorithm based on the dynamic and kinematic models for skid-steering as well as tractive force models parameterized by key vehicle-terrain parameters. In order to estimate and characterize the key parameters, nonlinear estimation techniques such as the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF), and a General Newton Raphson (GNR) method are integrated into this multi-tiered algorithm. A unique idea in using an EKF with an added State Noise Compensation algorithm is presented which shows its robustness and consistency in estimating slip variables and other parameters for deformable terrains. In the multi-tiered algorithm, a kinematic model of the robotic vehicle is used to estimate slip variables and turning radius. These estimated variables are stored in a truth table and used in a skid-steered dynamic model to estimate the coefficients of friction. The total estimated slip on the left and right track, along with the total tractive force computed using a motor model, are then used in the GNR algorithm to estimate the key vehicle-terrain parameters. These estimated parameters are cross-checked and confirmed with EKF estimation results. Further, these simulation results verify that the tracked vehicle tractive force is not dependent on cohesion for frictional soils. This sequential algorithm is shown to be effective in estimating vehicle-terrain interaction properties with relatively good accuracy. The estimated results obtained from UKF and EKF are verified and compared with available experimental data, and tested on a PackBot traversing specified terrains at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Small Robotics Testbed in San Antonio, Texas. In the end, based on the development and evaluation of small scale vehicle testing, the effectiveness of on-board sensing methods and estimation techniques are also discussed for potential use in real time estimation of vehicle-terrain parameters. / text

In today’s heavy industry there are applications demanding high power supply in certain periods of a working cycle. A typical case might be startup of heavy machinery or just keeping a certain point in a distribution network at a certain energy level. To deal with this different techniques might be used, one way is to introduce a battery as an energy reserve in the system. One battery studied at ABB for this purpose is the so called High Temperature Sodium Nickel Chloride battery and a model of this battery has been developed at ABB. When operating a battery of the mentioned type in an application it is important to keep track of the energy stored in the battery. Earlier tests has shown that this is difficult in a noisy environment. This master thesis investigates if a Kalman filter may be used to estimate the energy stored in the battery. The investigation is performed in steps, starting with a simplified model of the battery and then expanding to a more complete model. Evaluation of the methods and algorithms used is made by simulations and based on the assumption that there is a good model available. The model is special in such a way that it has a varying number of states despite that the number of outputs remains the same. Some comparisons with actual measurements are also made and an analysis of the parameters in the model along with an introduction to the system identification problem is discussed, assuming that the structure of the model is correct. / I dagens tunga industri finns applikationer som kräver höga effektuttag under vissa perioder av en arbetscykel. Ett typiskt fall kan vara uppstart av tunga maskiner eller att hålla en given spänningsnivå i en belastningspunkt i ett distributionsnät. För att hantera detta finns olika metoder, en möjlighet är att använda ett batteri som en energireserv. Ett högtemperaturbatteri har studerats på ABB för detta ändamål och en model av detta batteri har tagits fram. När ett sådant batteri används är det viktigt att kontinuerligt veta hur mycket energi som finns till förfogande i batteriet. Tidigare tester har visat att detta är svårt i en brusig miljö. I detta examensarbete kommer det undersökas om ett Kalman filter kan användas för att skatta energin i detta batteri. Undersökningen sker i steg och startar med en förenklad modell som sedan utvecklas till en mer komplett modell. Utvärdering av de metoder och algoritmer som används sker via simuleringar och baseras på antagandet att modellen är komplett och riktig. Denna modell är speciell på det sätt att den har ett variabelt antal tillstånd trots att antalet utsignaler är konstant. Viss jämförelse med de mätningar som finns tillgängliga görs och en inledande analys av de ingående modellparametrarna presenteras. Även en introduktion till det omfattande systemidentifieringsproblemet diskuteras, med antagandet att modellens struktur är korrekt.

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Space travelers in science fiction can drop out of hyperspace and make a pinpoint landing on any strange new world without stopping to get their bearings, but real-life space navigation is an art characterized by limited information and complex mathematics that yield no easy answers. This study investigates, for the first time ever, what position and velocity estimation errors can be expected by a starship arriving at a distant star - specifically, a miniature probe like those proposed by the Breakthrough Starshot initiative arriving at Proxima Centauri. Such a probe consists of nothing but a small optical camera and a small microprocessor, and must therefore rely on relatively simple methods to determine its position and velocity, such as observing the angles between its destination and certain guide stars and processing them in an algorithm known as an extended Kalman filter. However, this algorithm is designed for scenarios in which the position and velocity are already known to high accuracy. This study shows that the extended Kalman filter can reliably estimate the position and velocity of the Starshot probe at speeds characteristic of current space probes, but does not attempt to model the filter’s performance at speeds characteristic of Starshot-style proposals. The gravity of the target star is also estimated using the same methods.

No description available.

In this paper we study continuous tracking of airplanes using object detection models, namely YOLOv7, combined with a Kalman filter. The tracking should be able to be done in real-time. The idea of combining Kalman filters with an object detection model comes from the lack of time-dependent context in models such as YOLOv7. The model analyzes each frame independently and outputs airplane detections for the analyzed frame. Therefore, if an airplane flies behind a tree or a cloud, the object detection model will say that there is no object there. The Kalman filter is used to construct an object with a state consisting of position and velocity for every airplane. As such if an airplane flies behind a tree, it is possible to extrapolate the trajectory and resume tracking once the airplane is visible again, much like a human would extrapolate the trajectory naturally. In the report I describe the implementation and training of a YOLOv7 model, I further describe the construction and implementation of a Kalman filter as well as how observations are mapped on to objects in the Kalman filter. During this I introduce a parameter called cumulative confidence. This describes how long something is being tracked after observations cease. After losing sight of an object, the cumulative confidence starts to drop. When it reaches zero and the object is removed. This can take anywhere between 100 ms to 6 seconds depending on how much confidence the object has accumulated. Objects accumulate confidence by being observed and detected by the object detection model. In the results section I describe how the performance of the program changed when using a Kalman filter or when not using a Kalman filter. The results showed that continuous tracking of airborne airplanes was superior when using a Kalman filter as opposed to only using the YOLOv7 model. Continuous tracking was never lost in these 2 airborne cases when using the integrated Kalman filter. Continuous tracking was lost 5 respectively 11 times on the same cases when not using the Kalman filter. The last case in the results section, an airplane on a runway, showed the same performance with and without the Kalman filter. I go into detail why this is in both the results section and in Section 5.1 (Interpreting the results). / I detta pappret studeras kontinuerlig spårning av flygplan med hjälp av objektdetekterings-modeller, mer specifikt YOLOv7 modellen i kombination med Kalman filter. Spårningen ska kunna göras i realtid. Idén att kombinera Kalman filter med modeller för objektdetektering kommer från avsaknaden på tidsberoende kontext i modeller som YOLOv7. Modellen analyserar varje bild i en dataström oberoende och ger en utmatning med positioner av flygplan i den analyserade bilden. Därmed, om ett flygplan flyger in bakom ett träd eller ett moln så kommer modellen konstatera att det inte är ett objekt där. Kalman filtret används för att konstruera ett objekt med ett tillstånd som består av position och hastigheten av varje flygplan. På så vis om ett flygplan flyger in bakom ett träd är det möjligt att extrapolera vägen planet kommer flyga samt återuppta spårning när flygplanet blir synligt igen, på samma vis som en människa extrapolerar planets bana naturligt. I rapporten beskriver jag en implementering och träning av en YOLOv7 modell. Vidare beskriver jag konstruktionen och implementationen av ett Kalman filter, samt hur observationer mappas till objekt i Kalman filtret. Jag introducerar även en parameter som kallas “kumulativt förtroende”. Denna beskriver hur länge något spåras även efter att observationer upphör. När ett objekt ej får observationer längre så börjar det kumulativa förtroendet minska. När det når noll så tas objektet bort. Detta kan ta mellan 100 ms och sex sekunder, beroende på hur mycket förtroende objektet har ackumulerat. Objekt ackumulerar förtroende genom att bli observerade och detekterade av YOLOv7 modellen. I resultatdelen beskriver jag hur prestandan skiljer sig om programmet använder ett Kalman filter eller inte ett Kalman filter. Resultaten visar att kontinuerlig spårning av flygplan i luften var bättre när man använder ett Kalman filter. Spårningen av flygplan upphörde aldrig i de 2 fallen då flygplan var i luften. På dessa fallen så tappade modellen spårningen 5 respektive 11 gånger när den inte använde Kalman filtret. Det tredje och sista fallet i resultatdelen, ett flygplan på banan, visade samma prestanda med eller utan Kalman filtret. Jag går in i detalj kring varför det var så i resultatdelen och i diskussionen.

Planetary rovers are robots that need to perform autonomous navigation, because of the long delay communication and no human assistance. Furthermore, they need to perform the optimal estimation of its position in order to have a good performance on its navigation system. The need for good performance filters for estimating the actual position of mobile robots of this kind is needed, due to the fact that sensors are noisy and that information is of vital importance for a planetary rover’s mission. Besides, good accurate sensors for the matter, are not easy to find for space application. Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) were implemented to analyze a data set of a 4-wheel robot, and later used for comparison on accuracy in the estimation of its pose. The analysis will give the possibility to know the right combination of sensors, recognize some issues during the trajectory. Furthermore, this study has been made with aims to give the reader knowledge of state of the art in planetary rovers, their constraints and consideration while developing them. The robot used for the research has been developed for an international competition of field robot automation. The main goal is to navigate autonomously through flowerpots performing different tasks as flowerpot collection, distance traveled and robustness on localization and navigation algorithms. / <p>Validerat; 20120822 (anonymous)</p>

The low latitude tropical ionosphere has been investigated by various researchers using Global Positioning System (GPS). Presently for many civil aviation applications, the ionospheric modeling of the tropical region has gained importance, in particular for flight safety. Since ionosphere is dispersive in nature, dual frequency (L1 = 1575.42 MHz and L2 = 1227.60 MHz) GPS observations can be used to obtain Ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC). Since TEC varies with local time and geomagnetic latitude, an Ionospheric Modeling Technique using spatial linear approximation of vertical TEC over receiver station has been implemented following Sardon et al. The effects of all the systematic errors due to the satellite plus the receiver (SPR) instrumental biases can reach upto several nanoseconds. (1 TEC is 1016 electrons/m2, 1 ns = 2.86 TEC and 1 TEC = 0.16 m). Hence, to have an accurate estimation of ionospheric TEC, the instrumental biases must also be estimated. This thesis describes a heuristic adaptive Kalman Filtering scheme developed to estimate the TEC, the constants in the linearisation scheme, as well as the above total instrumental biases. The Kalman filter implementation is basically an optimization problem of minimizing the Cost Function J based on the difference between the model output and the measurement, called as the ‘innovation’, scaled by its covariance. In order to obtain the best possible results using the Kalman Filter approach, it is essential to provide appropriate values for the initial state, process and measurement noise covariances (P0, Q and R) respectively, which in general may not be known. Usually manual tuning of the filter parameter is carried out without using the above cost function J! The filter estimates can be highly sensitive to the above chosen statistics and thus these will have to be estimated carefully. Hence, we have utilized the Adaptive Kalman Filtering procedure of Myers and Tapley extended by Gemson and Ananthasayanam. The minimization is carried out by simultaneously estimating the above statistics and the unknown parameters, which include the TEC and the instrumental bias. In addition, A Constant Gain Kalman Filter approach using Genetic Algorithm (GA) has also been developed for the above requirement. It is observed that the steady state gains in KF and AKF approaches are in good match with the constant gains obtained from Genetic Algorithm. Using the above Adaptive Kalman Filtering technique and Constant Gain Kalman Filter approach, vertical TEC values and SPR biases have been estimated from the IGS receiver observations stationed at ISTRAC/ISRO, Bangalore, India. A diurnal TEC variation over Bangalore for a period of one year for 2003 and January 2004 is estimated and reported in this thesis. This approach has also been applied to study the behaviour of the ionosphere over low latitude IGS station at Fortaleza, Brazil data during the great magnetic storm on the 15th July 2000 and the results were found to be consistent with the results of Basu et al. In addition, Using Constant Kalman filter, the TEC enhancement over Indian region has been estimated for the October 2003 Ionospheric storm, and the results were found to be consistent with the reported results in the literature.

The Defence, Peace, Safety and Security (DPSS) competency area within the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has identified the need for the development of a robot that can operate in almost any land-based environment. Legged robots, especially hexapod (six-legged) robots present a wide variety of advantages that can be utilised in this environment and is identified as a feasible solution. The biggest advantage and main reason for the development of legged robots over mobile (wheeled) robots, is their ability to navigate in uneven, unstructured terrain. However, due to the complicated control algorithms needed by a legged robot, most literature only focus on navigation in even or relatively even terrains. This is seen as the main limitation with regards to the development of legged robot applications. For navigation in unstructured terrain, postural controllers of legged robots need fast and precise knowledge about the state of the robot they are regulating. The speed and accuracy of the state estimation of a legged robot is therefore very important. Even though state estimation for mobile robots has been studied thoroughly, limited research is available on state estimation with regards to legged robots. Compared to mobile robots, locomotion of legged robots make use of intermitted ground contacts. Therefore, stability is a main concern when navigating in unstructured terrain. In order to control the stability of a legged robot, six degrees of freedom information is needed about the base of the robot platform. This information needs to be estimated using measurements from the robot’s sensory system. A sensory system of a robot usually consist of multiple sensory devices on board of the robot. However, legged robots have limited payload capacities and therefore the amount of sensory devices on a legged robot platform should be kept to a minimum. Furthermore, exteroceptive sensory devices commonly used in state estimation, such as a GPS or cameras, are not suitable when navigating in unstructured and unknown terrain. The control and localisation of a legged robot should therefore only depend on proprioceptive sensors. The need for the development of a reliable state estimation framework (that only relies on proprioceptive information) for a low-cost, commonly available hexapod robot is identified. This will accelerate the process for control algorithm development. In this study this need is addressed. Common proprioceptive sensors are integrated on a commercial low-cost hexapod robot to develop the robot platform used in this study. A state estimation framework for legged robots is used to develop a state estimation methodology for the hexapod platform. A kinematic model is also derived and verified for the platform, and measurement models are derived to address possible errors and noise in sensor measurements. The state estimation methodology makes use of an Extended Kalman filter to fuse the robots kinematics with measurements from an IMU. The needed state estimation equations are also derived and implemented in Matlab®. The state estimation methodology developed is then tested with multiple experiments using the robot platform. In these experiments the robot platform captures the sensory data with a data acquisition method developed while it is being tracked with a Vicon motion capturing system. The sensor data is then used as an input to the state estimation equations in Matlab® and the results are compared to the ground-truth measurement outputs of the Vicon system. The results of these experiments show very accurate estimation of the robot and therefore validate the state estimation methodology and this study. / MIng (Computer and Electronic Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

The Defence, Peace, Safety and Security (DPSS) competency area within the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has identified the need for the development of a robot that can operate in almost any land-based environment. Legged robots, especially hexapod (six-legged) robots present a wide variety of advantages that can be utilised in this environment and is identified as a feasible solution. The biggest advantage and main reason for the development of legged robots over mobile (wheeled) robots, is their ability to navigate in uneven, unstructured terrain. However, due to the complicated control algorithms needed by a legged robot, most literature only focus on navigation in even or relatively even terrains. This is seen as the main limitation with regards to the development of legged robot applications. For navigation in unstructured terrain, postural controllers of legged robots need fast and precise knowledge about the state of the robot they are regulating. The speed and accuracy of the state estimation of a legged robot is therefore very important. Even though state estimation for mobile robots has been studied thoroughly, limited research is available on state estimation with regards to legged robots. Compared to mobile robots, locomotion of legged robots make use of intermitted ground contacts. Therefore, stability is a main concern when navigating in unstructured terrain. In order to control the stability of a legged robot, six degrees of freedom information is needed about the base of the robot platform. This information needs to be estimated using measurements from the robot’s sensory system. A sensory system of a robot usually consist of multiple sensory devices on board of the robot. However, legged robots have limited payload capacities and therefore the amount of sensory devices on a legged robot platform should be kept to a minimum. Furthermore, exteroceptive sensory devices commonly used in state estimation, such as a GPS or cameras, are not suitable when navigating in unstructured and unknown terrain. The control and localisation of a legged robot should therefore only depend on proprioceptive sensors. The need for the development of a reliable state estimation framework (that only relies on proprioceptive information) for a low-cost, commonly available hexapod robot is identified. This will accelerate the process for control algorithm development. In this study this need is addressed. Common proprioceptive sensors are integrated on a commercial low-cost hexapod robot to develop the robot platform used in this study. A state estimation framework for legged robots is used to develop a state estimation methodology for the hexapod platform. A kinematic model is also derived and verified for the platform, and measurement models are derived to address possible errors and noise in sensor measurements. The state estimation methodology makes use of an Extended Kalman filter to fuse the robots kinematics with measurements from an IMU. The needed state estimation equations are also derived and implemented in Matlab®. The state estimation methodology developed is then tested with multiple experiments using the robot platform. In these experiments the robot platform captures the sensory data with a data acquisition method developed while it is being tracked with a Vicon motion capturing system. The sensor data is then used as an input to the state estimation equations in Matlab® and the results are compared to the ground-truth measurement outputs of the Vicon system. The results of these experiments show very accurate estimation of the robot and therefore validate the state estimation methodology and this study. / MIng (Computer and Electronic Engineering), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015