Modelling and control of an autonomous vehicle
Institution: | University of Johannesburg |
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Department: | |
Year: | 2012 |
Keywords: | Mobile robots |
Record ID: | 1467806 |
Full text PDF: | http://hdl.handle.net/10210/5674 |
This thesis deals with the modelling and control of an autonomous four-wheeled car-like vehicle. The autonomous vehicle is built on the chassis of a Tamiya TXT-1, one-tenth scale, off-road remote control truck. The simplified kinematic and dynamic models of this vehicle are derived for the purposes of control. These models are converted to a suitable form and control laws are then developed to perform set-point control as well as path following. A sonar array is constructed to permit the vehicle to sense its surroundings and construct a map of an unknown environment as it navigates through it. Lastly the Vector Field Histogram (VFH) obstacle avoidance algorithm is implemented and used to guide the vehicle through a sparsely populated environment without colliding with the obstacles.