A Drive-by-Wire Conversion of an FMVSS-500 Vehicle for Autonomous Driving Applications

Autonomous driving has witnessed many developments in the past decade. Most automotive manufacturers and technology companies have been investing in the software and platform development of these vehicles, and long strides have been made in this domain. Nonetheless, academia has been partially isolated from the practical efforts of these developments, due to the cost involved in converting a standard vehicle into a drive-by-wire platform suitable for self-driving vehicular research. In this paper, a low-cost autonomous vehicle platform is developed and the process for converting a Polaris Gem e2 FMVSS-500 vehicle to brake-by-wire, throttle-by-wire, and steer-by-wire is elaborated. The tools and the procedures followed here were all conducted by students, in house, and can be easily duplicated for other FMVSS-500 compatible vehicles. Discussions include the interface of an embedded controller for an electric power steering system, electronic control of hydraulic brake pressure, and modulation of vehicle velocity and acceleration. Complete system operation via remote control is demonstrated.