Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Steering-drive'

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2010.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references.
In this paper, we propose CityCarControl, a system to manage the steering, braking, and throttle of a new class of intra-city electric vehicles. These vehicles have a focus on extreme light-weight and a small parking footprint. In order to maximize maneuverability within a city environment, we show the feasibility of omnidirectional steering, and the integration of a folding chassis. Furthermore, we apply traditionally programming best-practice techniques to simplify the design of the control system. Specifically, we present the concept of a modular, fail-silent wheel-robot with a standardized API responsible for controlling steering, braking and throttle within the vehicle.
by Thomas B. Brown.
M.Eng.

What will happen to sport cars once our society and infrastructure allow for a fully autonomous transport systems? My concern for the ”survival of the sports car” clearly originates from an emotional viewpoint rather than a reasonable argument. We know about the benefits that come along with autonomy but that doesn’t make the fear of loosing the emotional side of driving unfounded. My aim was to create a scenario that allows both reason and emotion to coexist and furthermore to benefit from each other rather than to create a conflict. The result is a PORSCHE for 2040 that shows an exciting concept for steering fully autonomous cars of the future. It combines the benefits of autonomy with the emotions of sports cars.

The aim of the diploma thesis is a proposal of a new steering construction of the special vehicle for disabled. The fundamental requirement for new construction is driving by only one main control. New steering construction was designed to uses drive-by-wire method and the vehicle is controlled by joy-stick. The proposal and necessary calculations were performed using Autodesk Inventor Professional 2015 software.

This thesis deals with a conceptual design of small utility vehicle with three axles. The aim is to devise a suitable type of frame along with construction of all axles and a steering system, implementation of a drive train, a braking system and other basic equipment. Own solution is preceded by elaboration of a survey dealing with small utility vehicles produced nowadays as well as in the past together with a description of all variants of basic assemblies suitable for the construction of the specified vehicle.

For a wide range of people with limited upper- and lower-body mobility, interaction with robots remains a challenging problem. Due to various health conditions, they are often unable to use standard joystick interface, most of wheelchairs are equipped with. To accommodate this audience, a number of alternative human-machine interfaces have been designed, such as single switch, sip-and-puff, brain-computer interfaces. They are known as low throughput interfaces referring to the amount of information that an operator can pass into the machine. Using them to control a wheelchair poses a number of challenges. This thesis makes several contributions towards the design of robotic wheelchairs controlled via low throughput human-machine interfaces: (1) To improve wheelchair motion control, an adaptive controller with online parameter estimation is developed for a differentially driven wheelchair. (2) Steering control scheme is designed that provides a unified framework integrating different types of low throughput human-machine interfaces with an obstacle avoidance mechanism. (3) A novel approach to the design of control systems with low throughput human-machine interfaces has been proposed. Based on the approach, position control scheme for a holonomic robot that aims to probabilistically minimize time to destination is developed and tested in simulation. The scheme is adopted for a real differentially driven wheelchair. In contrast to other methods, the proposed scheme allows to use prior information about the user habits, but does not restrict navigation to a set of pre-defined points, and parallelizes the inference and motion reducing the navigation time. (4) To enable the real time operation of the position control, a high-performance algorithm for single-source any-angle path planning on a grid has been developed. By abandoning the graph model and introducing discrete geometric primitives to represent the propagating wave front, we were able to design a planning algorithm that uses only integer addition and bit shifting. Experiments revealed a significant performance advantage. Several modifications, including optimal and multithreaded implementations, are also presented.

Context: Effective vision processing is an important study area for mobile robots which use vision to detect objects. The problem of detecting small sized coloured objects (e.g. Lego bricks) with no texture information can be solved using either colour or contours of the objects. The shape of such objects doesn‟t help much in detecting the objects due to the poor quality of the picture and small size of the object in the image. In such cases it is seen that the use of hybrid techniques can benefit the overall detection of objects, especially, combining keypoint based methods with the colour based techniques. Robotic motion also plays a vital role in the completion of autonomous tasks. Mobile robots have different configurations for locomotion. The most important system is differential steering because of its application in sensitive areas like military tanks and security robot platforms. The kinematic design of a robotic platform is usually based on the number of wheels and their movement. There can be several configurations of wheels designs, for example differential drives, car-like designs, omni-directional, and synchro drives. Differential drive systems use speed on individual channels to determine the combined speed and trajectory of the robot. Accurate movement of the robot is very important for correct completion of its activities. Objectives: A vision solution is developed that is capable of detecting small sized colour objects in the environment. This has also been compared with other shape detection techniques for performance evaluation. The effect of distance on detection is also investigated for the participating techniques. The precise motion of a four-wheel differential drive system is investigated. The target robot platform uses a differential drive steering system and the main focus of this study is accurate position and orientation control based upon sensor data. Methods: For object detection, a novel hybrid method „HistSURF‟ is proposed and is compared with other vision processing techniques. This method combines the results of colour histogram comparison and detection by the SURF algorithm. A solution for differential steering using a Gyro for the rotational speed measurement is compared with a solution using a speed model and control outputs without feedback (i.e. dead reckoning). Results: The results from the vision experiment rank the new proposed method highest among the other participating techniques. The distance experiment indicates that there is a direct and inverse relation between the distance and detected SURF features. It is also indicated by the results that distance affects the detection rate of the new proposed technique. In case of robot control, the differential drive solution using a speed model has less error rate than the one that uses a Gyro for angle measurement. It is also clear from the results that the greater the difference of speeds among the channels the less smooth is the angular movement. Conclusions: The results indicate that by combining a key-point based technique with colour segmentation, the false positive rate can be reduced and hence object recognition performance improves . It has also become clear that the improved accuracy of the proposed technique is limited to small distances and its performance decreases rapidly with increase in the distance to target objects. For robot control, the results indicate that a Gyro alone cannot improve the movement accuracy of the robotic system due to a variable drift exhibited by the Gyro while in rotation. However, a Gyro can be effective if used in combination with a magnetometer and some form of estimation mechanism like a Kalman filter. A Kalman filter can be used to correct the error in the Gyro by using the output from the magnetometer, resulting in a good estimate.
Bakgrund: Effektiv vision behandling är ett viktigt studieområde för mobila robotar som använder vision att upptäcka föremål. Problemet upptäcka små och medelstora färgade föremål (t.ex. Lego tegelstenar) utan konsistens information kan lösas med färg eller konturer av föremålen. Formen på sådana föremål spelar ingen hjälpa mycket att upptäcka föremål på grund av den dåliga kvaliteten på bild och ringa storlek på objektet i bilden. I sådana fall är det sett att användningen av hybrid-teknik kan gynna den totala upptäckt av föremål, särskilt genom att kombinera keypoint metoder med färgen tekniker. Robotic motion spelar också en viktig roll i genomförandet av självständiga uppgifter. Mobila robotar har olika konfigurationer för transport. Det viktigaste är differentierad styrning på grund av dess tillämpning i känsliga områden som stridsvagnar och säkerhet plattformar robot. Den kinematiska utformningen av en robot plattform är vanligtvis baserad på antalet hjul och deras rörelser. Det kan finnas flera konfigurationer av hjul mönster, till exempel olika enheter, bil-liknande mönster, rundstrålande, och driver synkroniserad. Differential drivsystem använder fart om olika kanaler för att bestämma den kombinerade snabbhet och banan för roboten. Exakt förflyttning av roboten är mycket viktigt för korrekt ifyllande av sin verksamhet. Mål: En vision lösning har utvecklats som kan upptäcka små och medelstora färg objekt i miljön. Detta har också jämfört med andra tekniker form upptäcka för utvärdering av prestanda. Effekten av avstånd vid upptäckt är också undersökas för de deltagande tekniker. Den exakta rörelse av en fyrhjulsdriven olika drivsystem undersöks. Målet robot plattform använder en differentierad system driva styrning och i centrum för denna studie är korrekt läge och riktning kontroll baserat på sensordata. Metoder: För att upptäcka, en ny hybrid metod "HistSURF" föreslås och jämförs med andra tekniker vision bearbetning. Denna metod kombinerar resultaten av färg histogram jämförelse och upptäckt av SURF algoritm. En lösning för differentierad styrning med hjälp av en Gyro för varvtal mätningen jämförs med en lösning med en hastighet modell och utgångar kontroll utan återkoppling (dvs död räkning). Resultat: Resultaten från den vision experiment inom den nya föreslagna metoden högsta bland de andra deltagande tekniker. Avståndet experiment indikerar att det finns ett direkt och omvänd korrelation mellan avstånd och upptäckt SURF funktioner. Det är också framgå av resultatet från det avståndet påverkar upptäckten hastighet av den nya föreslagna tekniken. Vid robot kontroll har skillnaden köra lösningen med en hastighet modell mindre felfrekvens än den som använder en Gyro för vinkelmätning. Det framgår även av resultaten att ju större skillnaden i hastigheter mellan de kanaler de mindre smidiga är vinkelrörelse. Slutsatser: Resultaten visar att genom att kombinera en central-punkt baserad teknik med färg segmentering, den falska positiva kan sänkas och därmed objektigenkänning prestanda ökar. Det har också blivit uppenbart att förbättrad noggrannhet av den föreslagna tekniken är begränsad till små avstånd och dess prestanda minskar snabbt med ökat avstånd till målet objekt. För robot kontroll, tyder resultaten på att en Gyro inte ensam kan förbättra rörligheten noggrannhet robotsystem på grund av en variabel glida ut av Gyro medan rotation. Men en Gyro kan vara effektiva om de används i kombination med en magnetometer och någon form av uppskattning mekanism som ett Kalman filter. En Kalman filter kan användas för att rätta till felet i Gyro med hjälp av utdata från magnetometer, vilket resulterar i en god uppskattning.

This research studied the tractive performance of integrated steering-drive systems by investigating a two-wheel-drive vehicle having two independent rear drive wheels and non-driven steerable front wheels. The feasibility of integrating the steering and drive systems and the performance advantages that may be obtained was investigated. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of the concept, the steering system and the drive system of a test vehicle were integrated using a computer with a specially-developed program. The software algorithm developed for the program used the mathematical relationship between the rear drive wheel speeds and the steer angles of the non-driven front wheels to set the steer angles. A test-bed vehicle was fitted with instrumentation to implement the computer-integrated system. The circuitry of the hydraulic lines of the hydraulically-driven test vehicle was modified to allow changes in drive configuration. These changes are not possible with conventional vehicles. The test vehicle could be configured for the following steering-drive configurations: open differential rear drive with steerable front wheels, independent rear drive wheels with front castors, locked differential rear drive with steerable front wheels and the computer-integrated steering-drive system developed. The sensors on the vehicle allowed data collection for characterising the vehicle and wheels. omputer models were developed for the various steering-drive configurations from the force relationships, longitudinal slip relationships, vehicle geometry and turning geometry. Characteristics of the test vehicle's wheels for use in the models were measured experimentally. he models were used to simulate the behaviour, and calculate the tractive performance, of the four steering-drive configurations in various situations but actual tests were not able to be conducted with the available resources. Unlike previous models, the models of this research used force and longitudinal slip information rather than power input and power output to produce values for drawbar efficiency. theoretical analysis was conducted into the optimal slip conditions for maximum tractive efficiency. The analysis was conducted using a more rigorous mathematical analysis than previous researchers and used a thorough graphical analysis to substantiate the mathematical analysis. Previous studies concluded that under all traction conditions the efficiency of slip will be a maximum when the slip of each wheel is equal. This research revealed that, contrary to the previous literature, efficiency of slip will not be a maximum when the slip of each wheel is equal under non-uniform traction conditions. The simulations were focussed on turning situations, non-uniform traction conditions and traversing slopes. The optimal slip conditions and steer angles for turning situations were also investigated and analysed. The computer-integrated steering-drive system achieved a drawbar pull 50% higher than that for a conventional open differential when undertaking a 10 m radius turn with non-uniform traction conditions. Under these conditions, the drawbar efficiency of the computer-integrated steering-drive system was 5% greater than that for the open differential at the lower drawbar pull. It was concluded that it is feasible and beneficial to use a computer-integrated steering system. Vehicles using such a system would operate more effectively and efficiently when turning under load, moving across slopes and in non-uniform traction conditions. More effectiveness was provided through greater drawbar pull and higher drawbar efficiency.
thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2005.

碩士
南台科技大學
電機工程系
94
The thesis aims at the design of permanent magnet synchronous motor drive by space vector pulse-width modulation (SVPWM) and the emulation of active front steering system that includes a two-axis servo motor control system. The specifically designed DSP chip TMS320LF2407 for motor control from TI is used in the system such that the built-in event manager modules, EVA and EVB, can easily provide the function of SVPWM and the peripherals can simplify the circuit design. The mechanical angles of two motor shafts correspond to the angle of steering wheel and the front-wheel steering angle, respectively. In order to provide more precise angles of steering wheel and front-wheel steering, the fuzzy control, instead of conventional PI control, is employed in the position control loop. Finally, the steer-by-wire is also considered in the two-axis motor control to validate the emulation system.

碩士
國立臺北科技大學
車輛工程系
106
A skid steering control strategy is proposed for a four-wheel independent driven vehicle without the steering system in this thesis. Due to large nonlinearities and model uncertainties of the skid steering, a model-free structure is used for the lateral dynamics control. The desired yaw rate command is generated from the steering angle, vehicle speed and the yaw rate gain based on a bicycle model. The upper level controller which consists of an adaptive fuzzy sliding mode control (AFSMC) and a feedforward control generates the wheel speed difference commands for the right and left wheels for yaw rate control. The wheel speed difference commands are combined with the vehicle speed command to obtain the wheel speed commands for the right and left wheels. In order to track the speed command, an equivalent model which consists of the motor dynamics, tire dynamics and vehicle longitudinal dynamics is used to design the lower level controller which is a linear-quadratic regular with integral control. Thus the vehicle can satisfy the vehicle speed and steering angle commands simultaneously. CarSim is used to simulate the vehicle dynamics in this thesis. Simulation results show that the yaw rate tracking error of the adaptive fuzzy sliding model control (AFSMC) is smaller than those of the feedforward control and the PI control with feedforward control for different vehicle speeds and road frictions. Thus enhance the control performance and robustness.

碩士
國立中央大學
電機工程學系
101
The purpose of this thesis is to develop a digital signal processor (DSP) based intelligent control of six-phase permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive system for electric power steering (EPS) system. Due to the EPS system is a nonlinear and time-varying system, the control accuracy is very sensitive to the parameter variations and external disturbances. Since the stability of EPS system is the most important issue, two intelligent control systems are proposed in this thesis. First, an improved differential evolution wavelet fuzzy neural network with asymmetric membership function (IDE WFNN-AMF) is proposed, in which the learning rates of IDE WFNN-AMF are adapted online. Then, an intelligent two-order sliding-mode controller (I2OSMC) is proposed, in which the uncertainties of the EPS system is estimated using the WFNN-AMF with online learning and fast convergence capabilities. The above two intelligent controllers can achieve the required high control performance of the EPS system. Finally, the six-phase PMSM drive system is implemented by the DSP TMS320F28335, and some experimental results are illustrated to verify the validity of the proposed intelligent controllers.

碩士
國立屏東科技大學
生物機電工程系所
105
In this study, a four-wheeled independent driving and steering (4WIS-4WID) agricultural vehicle is proposed to develop an autonomous vision-based guidance and control method which in implemented in embedded Robot Operating System (ROS). The center of gravity (COG) image processing, fuzzy logic inference, and proportion-integration-differentiation (PID) motion control method is integrated to perform straight-line travelling, headland turning, and zero-radius turning for agricultural vehicle. The experiments are conducted indoor and outdoor field environment. Meanwhile, a multi- antenna array-based global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver is utilized to record the navigation route and attitude of vehicle. Finally, the performance analysis is evaluated in the thesis.

As the demand for energy continues to increase around the world, more vessels used in the transport of energy, such as Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) and crude oil tankers are being built to transport energy to market overseas. The escort tug has been developed in order to assist in the safe transit of such vessels in confined waterways. Designed to apply emergency braking and steering forces to the stern of a tanker while underway, an escort tug features a hull shape that generates large hydrodynamic lift and drag forces when operating at high angles of attack, this is known as indirect mode. This escorting mode is highly effective at speeds 8 knots and above, often generating towline forces well in excess of bollard pull. Escort performance prediction is a vital aspect of the design of escort tugs. It is important to know a priori if a design will meet the necessary performance criteria. In the past, performance predictions have relied heavily on model testing and empirical methods. With the recent emergence of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) as a commercially viable design tool for naval architects, extensive escort performance predictions can now be carried out more accurately in less time and at less cost than was previously possible. This thesis describes the methodology of a CFD based escort performance prediction method that is accurate and cost effective.
Graduate