The need addressed in this thesis is to provide an Autonomous Ground Vehicle (AGV)
with accurate information regarding its position, velocity, and orientation. The system chosen to
meet these needs incorporates (1) a differential Global Positioning System, (2) an Inertial
Measurement Unit consisting of accelerometers and angular-rate sensors, and (3) a Kalman
Filter (KF) to fuse the sensor data. The obstacle avoidance software requires position and
orientation to build a global map of obstacles based on the returns of a scanning laser
rangefinder. The path control software requires position and velocity.
The development of the KF is the major contribution of this thesis. This technology can
either be purchased or developed, and, for educational and financial reasons, it was decided to
develop instead of purchasing the KF software. This thesis analyzes three different cases of
navigation: one-dimensional, two dimensional and three-dimensional (general). Each becomes
more complex, and separating them allows a three step progression to reach the general motion
solution.
Three tests were conducted at the Texas A&M University Riverside campus that
demonstrated the accuracy of the solution. Starting from a designated origin, the AGV traveled
along the runway and then returned to the same origin within 11 cm along the North axis, 19 cm
along the East axis and 8 cm along the Down axis. Also, the vehicle traveled along runway 35R
which runs North-South within 0.1ð, with the yaw solution consistently within 1ð of North or
South. The final test was mapping a box onto the origin of the global map, which requires
accurate linear and angular position estimates and a correct mapping transformation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/4244 |
| Date | 30 October 2006 |
| Creators | Odom, Craig Allen |
| Contributors | McDermott, Make |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis, text |
| Format | 144176640 bytes, 810220 bytes, electronic, application/octet-stream, application/pdf, born digital |
Page generated in 0.0013 seconds