An integrated approach to development of unmanned ground vehicle: design, analysis, implementation and suggestions

Abstract

As the intelligent vehicle concept accelerated with electric vehicles, and then interest in autonomous vehicle technologies increased, investments on unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) studies also accelerated. Unmanned ground vehicles, despite their complex structure and technology, bring many advantages with their use. The most important advantages of UGVs are that they do not have human-specific features (sleepiness, fatigue, anger, etc.), react faster, and reach a decision by calculating possibilities according to the conditions. In this study, a UGV has been developed, which has the ability to navigate to a self-determined or unknown area, ability of mapping, localization, trajectory detection and tracking, detection of obstacles and finding a new path to avoid collisions with these obstacles. In an area without a specific map, skecth or floor plan, UGV's autonomous driving capability in indoor and outdoor, has been verified by the experiments. The phases, problems, solution techniques and results required for UGV design are presented with a systematic approach in this study.