An autonomous system used in the DARPA Grand Challenge
J.C. Bebel, Nicholas Howard, Tanvi Patel · 2005
An autonomous system was designed and constructed to traverse the hostile desert terrain in the DARPA Grand Challenge robotics competition. Our autonomous system used GPS measurements in conjunction with a laser range finder to determine the passable terrain and to negotiate around natural and man-made obstacles on the route. The primary navigation portion of this system uses a scalable, heuristic array of data, and determines the preferred heading of the vehicle, factoring desired heading from a GPS sensor and obstacle data from a laser range finder. When implemented, this system demonstrated the capability to pass stationary vehicles and navigate sloping terrain while negotiating around fences and towers between sequential GPS waypoints.