Autonomous People Mover
Alex Avery, Joe Hudden, David Ruan, Eric Schulken, Cody J. Smith, Jessica VanGiesen, Michael Zielinski, Ray Ptucha · 2024
Most automobile forecasters predict that by the mid-2020's autonomous driving will transform the automobile market.What started with cruise control, then driver assist, and now highway autopilot, will soon develop into full autonomy.Autonomous vehicles will make our roadways safer, our environment cleaner, our roads less congested, and our lifestyles more efficient.This paper describes a multidisciplinary capstone project that is working towards turning a golf cart into a fully autonomous vehicle.Phases one and two of this project focused on making the golf cart remote controllable, while the current effort, and the bulk of this paper, is focused on making the vehicle drive autonomously within a closed course.Given a destination, the cart will plan a path based on the shortest distance and approved roadways.The vehicle will then precisely execute this path while detecting any obstacles in its way.The vehicle will do this by collecting data from various devices including GPS, LiDAR, odometry sensors, and several ultrasonic sensors.This paper discusses the innovative design, implementation, and integration of the various subsystems required for autonomous driving.