Development Of Unmanned Ground Vehicles Research Articles

BIZON–UGV for Airport Pavement Testing: Mechanics and Control

The paper presents a study of the performance and development of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), establishing mathematical and numerical models of the chassis system. The model analysis is performed by 3D software package SolidWorks 2018 with finite element discretization. The mesh modelling and analysis are focused on studying the strength and stiffness of the robotic platform chassis and the distribution of stress and deformation in the extremal condition. The paper also presents an autopilot design with a new cascade control system for the autonomous motion of an unmanned ground vehicle based on proportional–integral–derivative (PID) and feedforward (FF) control. The PID-FF controller is part of a UGV used in a hybrid control system for precise control and stabilization, which is necessary to increase the vehicle motion stability and maneuver precision. The hybrid PID-FF control system proposed for the ground vehicle model gives satisfactory control quality while maintaining the simplicity of the control system. The presented tests performed in mechanical design and control analysis give good results and prove the usefulness of the designed unmanned device.

Dynamics control of topology switching for multi-functional unmanned ground vehicle platoon with VCBDL topology

With the development of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs), a variety of civilian missions could be carried out by UGVs. The utilization of UGV in Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) has received significant attention in recent year. However, single UGV can’t satisfy the requirement of enormous complex work in civil use. It requires UGV to be grouped as a platoon to complete different mission with different formation and information topology. Therefore, a novel coordination control method is needed to solve the topology switch problem. In this paper, a switchable form of Vehicle-Cloud Bidirectional Leader (VCBDL) topology is proposed. Within this information topology, the formation topology of UGV platoon is formed by following the order of cloud brain and can be switched for different requirement. To obtain stable performance of the platoon in switch process, this paper analyzes the design of the platoon controller. The range of controller gain is obtained through the Lyapunov stability analysis. The above conclusions are verified by the experiments based on a shuttle UGV testbed platoon.

Research on a multi-attribute comprehensive evaluation system for unmanned ground vehicles

To promote the development of unmanned ground vehicles, it is very necessary to establish a scientific and reasonable evaluation system for unmanned ground vehicles. This paper analyses the structure and operation of unmanned ground vehicles, and also proposes a multi-attribute comprehensive evaluation system for unmanned ground vehicles. Based on six aspects including environment perception, communication command, behavioural decision-making, human-computer interaction, weapon system and mobile platform, a new evaluation indicator system is established. In the quantitative process of qualitative indicators, Z-number theory is introduced to better describe the uncertainty degree of judgment and reasoning in human’s understanding of complex things. In order to make the indicator weights more scientific, the combined weighting model with analytic hierarchy process and information entropy is adopted for weight analysis, which not only takes into account the influence of evaluation experts on weights, but also reduces the subjective arbitrariness of weights. The least-squares grey relational analysis method is used to analyse the correlation between the comparison series and the reference series, and a comprehensive quantitative evaluation result of the unmanned ground vehicles is obtained. The evaluation examples of unmanned ground vehicles show that the proposed evaluation system can quantitatively evaluate the overall technical performance of unmanned ground vehicles. This evaluation system has high reference value for the evaluation of other complex weapons.

Current state and development prospects of unmanned ground vehicles for the Army of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

The article examines the changing nature of warfare, its influence on the development of unmanned ground vehicles. It provides the analysis of unmanned ground vehicles status, grounds the necessity to construct the range of types of unmanned ground vehicles for the Army of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

The Next Generation of Unmanned Ground Vehicles

Over the last decade, the development of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) has received significant attention through technology competitions, such as the DARPA Grand Challenges, where an unmanned vehicle autonomously navigated across a desert or through semiurban roads. Although this marked a significant step forward in autonomous navigation, the current generation of UGVs are only capable of operating in controlled environments where the dynamics of a scene are well-understood. For example in both of the DARPA Grand Challenges, the participants were given detailed maps and the environment was carefully controlled during the competition. The next generation of UGVs will need to operate in uncontrolled environments where the terrain and infrastructure is uncertain and humans could be present. This paper discusses the challenges and current developments in the areas of sensing, localisation and planning to realise the next generation of UGVs.

Design on Hierarchical Testing System for Unmanned Ground Vehicles

The test system for technical abilities of unmanned vehicles is gradually developed from the single test to comprehensive test. The pre-established test and evaluation system can promote the development of unmanned ground vehicles. The 2009 Future Challenge: Intelligent Vehicles and Beyond (FC’09) pushed China's unmanned vehicles out of laboratories. This paper proposed to design a more scientific and comprehensive test system for future competitions to better guide and regulate the development of China's unmanned vehicles. According to the design idea of stage by stage and level by level, the hierarchical test content from simple to advanced, from local to overall is designed. Then the hierarchic test environment is established according to the levels of test content. The test method based on multi-platform and multi-sensor is put forward to ensure the accuracy of test results. The testing criterion framework is set up to regulate future unmanned vehicle contests and to assess the unmanned vehicles scientifically and accurately.