Title page for ETD etd-283421290973280

Type of Document

Master's Thesis

Author

Schlegel, Nikolai

URN

etd-283421290973280

Title

Autonomous Vehicle Control using Image Processing

Degree

Master of Science

Department

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Advisory Committee

Advisor Name	Title
Kachroo, Pushkin
Nunnally, Charles E.
Bay, John S.	Committee Chair

Keywords

autonomous vehicle
lateral control
image processing
telerobotic operation
H-Infinity control

Date of Defense

1997-01-27

Availability

unrestricted

Abstract

This thesis describes the design of an inexpensive autonomous vehicle system

using a small scaled model vehicle. The system is capable of operating in

two different modes: telerobotic manual mode and automated driving mode.

In telerobotic manual mode, the model vehicle is controlled by a human

driver at a stationary remote control station with full-scale steering wheel

and gas pedal. The vehicle can either be an unmodified toy remote-control

car or a vehicle equipped with wireless radio modem for communication and

microcontroller for speed control. In both cases the vehicle also carries a

video camera capable of transmitting video images back to the remote control

station where they are displayed on a monitor.

In automated driving mode, the vehicle's lateral movement is controlled by a

lateral control algorithm. The objective of this algorithm is to keep the

vehicle in the center of a road. Position and orientation of the vehicle are

determined by an image processing algorithm identifying a white middle

marker on the road. Two different algorithm for image processing have been

designed: one based on the pixel intensity profile and the other on

vanishing points in the image plane. For the control algorithm itself, two

designs are introduced as well: a simple classical P-control and a control

scheme based on H-Infinity.

The design and testing of this autonomous vehicle system are performed

in the Flexible Low-cost Automated Scaled Highway (FLASH) laboratory

at Virginia Tech.

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