Small-Scale Intelligent Vehicle Design Platform

Intelligent Vehicle Design is a growing field with the potential to save many lives by actively minimizing the impacts of human error. Though there are many ways to research intelligent vehicle control, full-scale implementations are expensive and dangerous and computer simulations have extremely steep learning curves. Researchers and students need an accessible, adaptable, and robust development platform to rapidly create and test autonomous control algorithms. While small-scale platforms are often designed from the ground up for specific projects, this requires analysis, design, and manufacture. The goal of this project is to develop a small-scale intelligent vehicle that can be configured with physical sensors and programmed with control algorithms designed in Simulink. We will strive to make our design adaptable and reproducible through intentional design and documentation. We have completed the design to adapt a 1/7th scale remote control vehicle with a custom chassis, independently driven wheels, and a Raspberry Pi based control package. An inertial measurement unit, an ultrasonic rangefinder, and a camera will give the system realtime data about itself and its surroundings. This well-documented research platform will enable more students to get hands on experience in developing and testing intelligent vehicle systems. These students will become the next generation of vehicle safety engineers, developing the life-saving intelligent vehicle systems of the future