Autonomous model car : Construction and development for evaluation of indoor positioning system

Sammanfattning: This thesis work aims for the development of an autonomous model car to evaluate an indoor Ultra-wideband (UWB) positioning system and for the investigation of integrating a Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) sensor to the final system. The goal to be achieved is that the model car should be able to receive a travel plan specified by the user, run autonomously along the plan by receiving the continuously updated position and stop in front of obstacles. A prototype of such a model car has been developed. It is shown that it was able to travel along the plan specified by a user with aid of the positioning system and proven that the concept of an autonomous vehicle guided with the positioning system works. The model car was tested and the performance of it merged with the positioning system was evaluated by travelling along a circle and a sharp, 90° corner and by measuring the lap times from the travelling for various error margins. The error margin decides when a destination is deemed reached. The test results show that the model car has limitations to its slowest speed and turning radius. The results also show that the positioning system has significant position updating latency. Integrating a LIDAR to the model car is shown to be beneficial, in particular, when adding information of e.g. walls and doors in advance and the LIDAR then acting as a perceptive system to obtain information of the unknown parts of the surrounding. This can then result in a time optimal travel plan that can adapt to a dynamic environment.