Design and development of an autonomous scaled electric combat vehicle

Abstract

Current literature pertaining to multi-steerable mobile robots and the progression of military vehicles in the past few decades suggest a lack of effort in pursuing advanced technologies in this joint area. As a result, a novel scaled robotic platform that features independent wheel actuation and autonomous navigation capabilities is developed in this work to represent a potential future design of combat vehicles. The following thesis discusses the details of the mechanical systems in addition to the embedded electronics and software architecture. From there, previously developed mapping and path planning algorithms in addition to a developed localization algorithm are implemented to achieve autonomous navigation. Furthermore, a vision-based close quarter pose correction algorithm is designed and developed to improve upon the limitations imposed by current navigation methodologies. The result of this work is a proposed prototype capable of navigation and precise positioning.