A Low-Cost Model Vehicle Testbed with Accurate Positioning for Autonomous Driving

Vedder, Benjamin; Vinter, Jonny; Jönsson, Magnus

doi:10.1155/2018/4907536

Cited by 14 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 19 publications

(23 reference statements)

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“…Optimizing locomotion control parameters, and introducing feedback will likely yield higher robot speed. We expect that continuous progress with off-the-shelf components will further reduce robot weight and increase robot performance: more compact, powerful, brushless motors of different form factors are becoming available (De and Koditschek, 2015 ), together with compact, high-power, four-quadrant brushless motor controllers (Vedder, 2018 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oncilla Robot: A Versatile Open-Source Quadruped Research Robot With Compliant Pantograph Legs

et al. 2018

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We present Oncilla robot, a novel mobile, quadruped legged locomotion machine. This large-cat sized, 5.1 kg robot is one of a kind of a recent, bioinspired legged robot class designed with the capability of model-free locomotion control. Animal legged locomotion in rough terrain is clearly shaped by sensor feedback systems. Results with Oncilla robot show that agile and versatile locomotion is possible without sensory signals to some extend, and tracking becomes robust when feedback control is added (Ajallooeian, 2015b). By incorporating mechanical and control blueprints inspired from animals, and by observing the resulting robot locomotion characteristics, we aim to understand the contribution of individual components. Legged robots have a wide mechanical and control design parameter space, and a unique potential as research tools to investigate principles of biomechanics and legged locomotion control. But the hardware and controller design can be a steep initial hurdle for academic research. To facilitate the easy start and development of legged robots, Oncilla-robot's blueprints are available through open-source. The robot's locomotion capabilities are shown in several scenarios. Specifically, its spring-loaded pantographic leg design compensates for overdetermined body and leg postures, i.e. during turning maneuvers, locomotion outdoors, or while going up and down slopes. The robot's active degree of freedom allow tight and swift direction changes, and turns on the spot. Presented hardware experiments are conducted in an open-loop manner, with little control and computational 1 arXiv:1803.06259v2 [cs.RO] 16 Jun 2018 Spröwitz et al. Oncilla robot effort. For more versatile locomotion control, Oncilla-robot can sense leg joint rotations, and legtrunk forces. Additional sensors can be included for feedback control with an open communication protocol interface. The robot's customized actuators are designed for robust actuation, and efficient locomotion. It trots with a cost of transport of 3.2 J/(Nm), at a speed of 0.63 m s −1 (Froude number 0.25). The robot trots inclined slopes up to 10 • , at 0.25 m s −1 . The multi-body Webots model of Oncilla robot, and Oncilla robot's extensive software architecture enables users to design and test scenarios in simulation. Controllers can directly be transferred to the real robot. Oncilla robot's blueprints are open-source published (hardware GLP v3, software LGPL v3).

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oncilla Robot: A Versatile Open-Source Quadruped Research Robot With Compliant Pantograph Legs

et al. 2018

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“…is makes it possible to estimate the position of the model car with an accuracy of around 5 cm with 100 Hz update rate under dynamic conditions [4].…”

Section: System Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…e configuration, control, and visualization of the model car is handled from our RCon-trolStation software that runs on a computer to which the SSH port forwarding from the car is done. RControlStation can be used to graphically edit trajectories overlayed on OpenStreetMap [15], which the car can follow using an improved version [4] of the pure pursuit algorithm [16]. e real-time position estimation and control, including the pure pursuit algorithm, is handled on the controller board on the car with a Cortex M4 microcontroller.…”

Section: System Setupmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this paper, we address this need by automating test case generation not only in simulations [1] and Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) tests [2,3], but also on full-scale hardware. To demonstrate this approach, we equip our self-driving model car [4] with an ultrawideband (UWB) positioning system in addition to the Real-Time Kinematic Satellite Navigation (RTK-SN) positioning system it already has and evaluate the performance of the UWB system against the RTK-SN system. Our test method consists of automatically generating random drivable trajectories for our model car, injecting faults into the UWB system and comparing the position outputs of both positioning systems.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Automated Testing of Ultrawideband Positioning for Autonomous Driving

Vedder

Svensson

Vinter

et al. 2020

Journal of Robotics

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Autonomous vehicles need accurate and dependable positioning, and these systems need to be tested extensively. We have evaluated positioning based on ultrawideband (UWB) ranging with our self-driving model car using a highly automated approach. Random drivable trajectories were generated, while the UWB position was compared against the Real-Time Kinematic Satellite Navigation (RTK-SN) positioning system which our model car also is equipped with. Fault injection was used to study the fault tolerance of the UWB positioning system. Addressed challenges are automatically generating test cases for real-time hardware, restoring the state between tests, and maintaining safety by preventing collisions. We were able to automatically generate and carry out hundreds of experiments on the model car in real time and rerun them consistently with and without fault injection enabled. Thereby, we demonstrate one novel approach to perform automated testing on complex real-time hardware.

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