An autonomous control system for land vehicles was developed. The control system consists of two major core systems, the Mission Planning and Control Unit (MPCU) and Piloting System Unit (PSU) and a number of subsystems, including the Positioning Unit (PU).
The system architecture is modular and it employs a virtual vehicle abstraction to give the system to a degree of vehicle-independency. The development and testing of the system have been carried out using a 1.5 ton tracked vehicle with a hydrostatic powertrain as a test platform.
Real-Time Kinematic GPS positioning coupled with fiber-optic gyros have been used to achieve the high positioning accuracy needed in the system. Extended Kalman Filters have been used to achieve data fusion, and cubic B-splines have been used for trajectory generation.
The system has performed well in autonomous tests; navigation accuracy of ± 5 cm has been consistently achieved.
Further development work will concentrate on system refinements, reliability in less than ideal conditions, and systems integration.