Architecture and Algorithm for a Laboratory Vehicle Collision Avoidance System

In this paper we describe the application architecture for a collision avoidance system developed for a fleet of sensorless mobile vehicles. The system has been deployed in the IT Convergence Lab in the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, which is a testbed for studying system architecture for networked embedded control systems. We describe several factors that a well designed collision avoidance algorithm needs to address, and discuss some of the tradeoffs and design decisions that need to be made. The solution that we have developed has a minimal effect on existing components for higher level functionality, as well their interfaces. The architecture and algorithm provide a low level safety guarantee regardless of higher level objectives. The architecture exploits the infrastructure and services provided by the control domain middleware, called Etherware, which has been developed in the laboratory. Indeed, the development of the collision avoidance system shows the usefulness of the specific services and abstractions that Etherware provides to the application designer in facilitating rapid system design and deployment.

[1]  Wolfram Burgard,et al.  The dynamic window approach to collision avoidance , 1997, IEEE Robotics Autom. Mag..

[2]  Fei-Yue Wang,et al.  Smart Cars on Smart Roads: An IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society Update , 2006, IEEE Pervasive Computing.

[3]  Lui Sha,et al.  A Pattern for Adaptive Behavior in Safety-Critical, Real-Time Middleware , 2006, 2006 27th IEEE International Real-Time Systems Symposium (RTSS'06).

[4]  MoravecHans.  Sensor fusion in certainty grids for mobile robots , 1988 .

[5]  Charles E. Thorpe,et al.  Perception for collision avoidance and autonomous driving , 2003 .

[6]  Yoram Koren,et al.  Potential field methods and their inherent limitations for mobile robot navigation , 1991, Proceedings. 1991 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[7]  Jing Wang,et al.  Distributed traffic regulation and control for multiple autonomous mobile robots operating in discrete space , 1995, Proceedings of 1995 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[8]  J.B. de Sousa,et al.  Specification and design of coordinated motions for autonomous vehicles , 2002, Proceedings of the 41st IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, 2002..

[9]  Pravin Varaiya,et al.  Smart cars on smart roads: problems of control , 1991, IEEE Trans. Autom. Control..

[10]  G. Baliga,et al.  A Middleware for Control over Networks , 2005, Proceedings of the 44th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control.

[11]  Reid G. Simmons,et al.  The curvature-velocity method for local obstacle avoidance , 1996, Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[12]  Lui Sha,et al.  Service Continuity in Networked Control Using Etherware , 2004, IEEE Distributed Syst. Online.

[13]  Carl A. Gunter,et al.  Reducing Risk by Managing Software Related Failures in Networked Control Systems , 2006, Proceedings of the 45th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control.

[14]  Kenneth P. Laberteaux,et al.  Efficient coordination and transmission of data for cooperative vehicular safety applications , 2006, VANET '06.

[15]  Michael Brady,et al.  A bayesian approach to real-time obstacle avoidance for a mobile robot , 1995, Auton. Robots.

[16]  John M. Dolan,et al.  MULTI-ROBOT PATH PLANNING BY PREDICTING STRUCTURE IN A DYNAMIC ENVIRONMENT , 2000 .

[17]  B. Faverjon,et al.  Probabilistic Roadmaps for Path Planning in High-Dimensional Con(cid:12)guration Spaces , 1996 .

[18]  Scott R. Graham,et al.  Issues in the Convergence of Control With Communication and Computation , 2004 .

[19]  Panganamala Ramana Kumar,et al.  Scheduling Automated Traffic on a Network of Roads , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology.

[20]  P. Grayson.  Robotic Motion Planning , 1999 .

[21]  ZengDaniel,et al.  Smart Cars on Smart Roads , 2006 .

[22]  Yoram Koren,et al.  Real-time obstacle avoidance for fast mobile robots in cluttered environments , 1990, Proceedings., IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[23]  Julie Candler,et al.  SMART CARS, SMART ROADS , 1996 .

[24]  Hans P. Moravec.  Sensor Fusion in Certainty Grids for Mobile Robots , 1988, AI Mag..