Autonomous charging system for outdoor differential vehicles

• Main Author: Rahul Nambiar
• Other Authors: Domenico Campolo
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2018
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Control and instrumentation::Robotics
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/75187
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The aim of the project was to design and develop a skid steer based unmanned ground vehicle capable of autonomous docking and charging. The unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) developed was to be capable of autonomous navigation and to perform tasks such as surveillance, inspection or other similar tasks with no human intervention. The autonomous docking feature was developed to improve the autonomy of the ground vehicle to ensure continuous operation of the UGV without requiring any human assistance. This would enable the deployment of such systems in remote locations where accessibility is poor, or safety is of concern for human operators. The project scope involves mechanical design, fabrication and assembly of the components. Electrical circuits were then put in place to power the board and to interface the various sensors and control the motors. The algorithms running on the onboard PC make use of the sensor data to map its environment, plan paths and navigate to its desired goals. The navigation stack runs on the Robotic Operating System and makes use of SLAM and the DWA (Dynamic Window Analysis) approach for the autonomy of the robot. The second phase of the project involved the development of the docking system. The dock was fabricated using a combination of wooden, aluminium and copper components. The docking algorithm is based on detection and tracking of AR tags to determine the pose and relative distance to the dock. The ground vehicle has been set up with all the necessary hardware and software packages to develop a fully autonomous solution to multiple utility applications like patrolling, logistics management, etc.