Comparison of Three Control Methods for an Autonomous Vehicle

www.robotics.uc.edu The desirability and challenge of developing a completely autonomous vehicle and the rising need for more efficient use of energy by automobiles motivate the search for an optimum solution to computer control of energy efficient vehicles. The purpose of this paper is to compare three control methods- mechanical, hydraulic and electric that have been used to convert an experimental all terrain vehicle to drive by wire which would eventually act as a test bed for conducting research on various technologies for autonomous operation. Computer control of basic operations in a vehicle namely steering, braking and speed control have been implemented and will be described in this paper. The output from a 3 axis motion controller is used for this purpose. The motion controller is interfaced with a software program and WSDK (Windows Servo Design Kit) serves as an intermediate tuning layer for tuning and parameter settings in autonomous operation. The software program is developed in C++. The voltage signal sent to the motion controller can be varied through the control program for desired results in controlling the steering motor, activating the hydraulic brakes and varying the vehicle’s speed. The vehicle has been tested for its basic functionality which includes testing of street legal operations and also a 1000 mile test while running in a hybrid mode. The vehicle has also been tested for control when it is interfaced with device