Abstract
This paper presents our approach to development of an autonomous golf cart, which will navigate in inaccessible by regular vehicles private areas. For this purpose, we have built a virtual golf course terrain and golf cart model in Gazebo, selected and modernized ROS-based packages in order to use them with Ackermann steering vehicle simulation. To verify our simulation and algorithms, we navigated the golf cart model from one golf hole to another within a virtual 3D golf course. For the real world algorithms’ verification, we developed a small-size vehicle prototype based on Traxxas radio-controlled car model, which is equipped with an on-board controller and sensors. The autonomous navigation of Traxxas-based vehicle prototype has been tested in indoor environment, where it utilized sensory data about environment and vehicle states, and performed localization, optimal trajectory computation and dynamic obstacles’ recognition with adjusting the route in real time.
Highlights
The growth in the amount of research on unmanned vehicle technology for the past decade shows significant interest to autonomous vehicle control and navigation
We are focusing on a long-term goal of building a fullsize autonomous golf cart, which will be controlled and navigated with Robot Operating System (ROS)-based algorithms
We have divided the autonomous golf cart (AGC) implementation into three main stages: (1) golf cart simulation and testing of navigation algorithms in the simulated environment; (2) small-size car model prototyping, and (3) a full-size golf cart prototype supplying with sensors and systems, and its navigation in a real environment
Summary
The growth in the amount of research on unmanned vehicle technology for the past decade shows significant interest to autonomous vehicle control and navigation. Due to slow evolution of autonomous cars related regulations, and inability of existing technologies to handle complex aspects of driving (e.g., poor road conditions or unsafe navigation of some human drivers), fully autonomous vehicles are still far from being commercially available. The AGC implementation contains three main stages: (1) golf cart simulation and testing of navigation algorithms in a simulated virtual environment; (2) building a prototype on a base of a radio-controlled car model, and (3) transferring the developed systems to a full sized golf cart and testing it in a real world environment.
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