Design and development of an affordable autonomous vehicle for bike lanes

Abstract

The last three decades have seen steadily increasing research efforts, both in academia and in industry, towards developing driverless vehicle technology. Autonomous vehicles have the potential to dramatically reduce the contribution of driver error and negligence as the cause of vehicle collisions. They will also provide a means of personal mobility to people who are unable to drive due to physical or visual disability. They will also become a major component of smart urban infrastructure by reducing traffic congestion and providing last-mile connectivity. However, most of the development is largely focused on four-wheeled vehicles with expensive sensors and onboard computing. Also, these vehicles have to meet strict safety standards and regulations for operation in a hostile environment like car lanes in dense cities. This thesis presents the design and development of the Persuasive Electric Vehicle (PEV), a low-cost autonomous electric tricycle specifically designed for operation in bike lanes in urban environments. We adopt a ground-up approach towards building an autonomous vehicle which operates in less hostile traffic conditions as compared to car lanes. The vehicle uses comparatively low-cost sensors and onboard compute system for achieving the task of autonomy. We also demonstrate the efficacy of multi-sensor fusion for state estimation as well as the implementation of a SLAM software for 2D mapping of an urban environment.