RoboCar Autonomous Vehicle Project
September, 1997 Monthly Status Report
Progress Statement: This is the first monthly report of the RoboCar project which details the progress that has been made since the beginning of the school year. The first accomplishment of the project team was to decide on team organization. We have decided not to elect a single project leader. In stead, we have divided the project into four main areas: mobility, ultrasound, vision and guidance. Each area will have a group of personnel with a group leader to coordinate activities. The responsibility of writing monthly reports will rotate among the team members, and the tasks normally assigned to a project leader, keeping track of budget and timetable, and coordination between groups, will be handled by the person writing the current monthly report. The reasons we have decided to do this are that we are a relatively small team with a small number of subgroups. We hold general meetings which everyone attends, and we seem to have good communication between groups so far. Finally, no one was interested in becoming the project leader instead preferring to work on specific areas of the project.
The other major milestone we have passed is the Concept Proposal Presentation. This presentation was given on Sept 25. For the presentation we brainstomed design ideas and decided on a design concept. A simplified version of the concept is as follows: RoboCar will be a four wheeled vehicle with an articulated chassis. RoboCar will use electric motors for propulsion, and either differential wheel torque or a center actuator for steering. RoboCar will detect painted lines using processed images from video cameras, and will detect obstacles using ultrasound proximity sensors. RoboCar will have a guidance algorithm for line following and obstacle avoidance which will allow it to complete the course. The response to the CPP was generally positive. Some specific positive comments were that the proposal was well coordinated and that everyone had a common view of the design. Some concerns were whether the articulated body design was too experimental, the design of the ultrasound system was not very detailed, and that there was no overall budget.
Details of each group are below:
Mobility
Progress:
The mobility group has created a working lego model of the articulated body design using electric motors and variable wheel torque for steering. They have begun to set cost and weight estimates based on parts catalogs.
Work to be done:
Decide whether the car will have a suspension system and if so what type.
Key Questions/Design Drivers:
The turning radius requirement will be determined by, or will determine requirements for the detection range for obstacles.
Ultrasound
Progress:
The ultrasound group has researched different ultrasound sensors, and is working on the interface between the sensors and the central computer.
Work to be done:
Determine a specific configuration of sensors and the fields of view provided by that configuration.
Key Questions/Design Drivers:
The configuration of sensors will have impact on the guidance group determining what locations the guidance algorithm can have knowledge of, and at what resulution. Also, the ultrasound and vision groups need to work together if they want the vision and ultrasound systems to work together, i.e. seeing an obstacle with ultrasound, and then doing vision processing to determine its location with greater accuracy.
Vision
Progress:
The vision team has done tests to determine the field of view, and accuracy of image processing at various camera angles. Also, they have researched other cameras than those currently available to the group.
Work to be done:
Determine a specific camera configuration.
Determine the field of view of that configuration.
Determine a specific image processing algorithm includingfilters and feature detectors.
Key Questions/Design Drivers:
How adaptable should the system be to unknown terrain.
What will the vision and ultrasound systems provide as input
to the guidance system, and what will the mobility system expect as
output from the guidance system.