Initial Development of Low-Cost Autonomous Rover for Pursuit of Moving Targets

Abstract Technical progress in the development of autonomous off-road ground vehicles has recently led to the appearance of commercially available compact unmanned rovers. However, most of them remain rather costly. In the present study, an effort is made to develop a low-cost small-scale rover that can be used to pursue moving targets and perform other tasks, as well as be applicable as an educational platform for robotics courses. This paper presents the hardware/software implementation, including Arduino-compatible electronics architecture, GPS-RTK modules, enhanced compass, telemetry modules, and data logging. The vehicle control modes, communication with a moving target, adaptation of software libraries, and recommendations for sensing and steering are described. Three outdoor tests conducted with the autonomous rover are presented in the paper, including trajectory plots and time-dependent kinematic characteristics. In the first trial, the rover successfully reached a set of pre-programmed stationary waypoints. In the second test, the rover autonomously pursued a moving target that had a complicated trajectory. The rover was able to approach and follow the target, while larger deviations of relative distances between the rover and the target and bigger fluctuations of the rover speed were noticed during sudden turns and stops of the target. The last test was carried out with a sonar that can detect obstacles on the rover path, adding a capability for the rover to avoid collisions. The future development steps will include implementation computer vision modules, so more sophisticated autonomous control methods can be tested and optimized on this platform. The reported in this paper information will be useful for researchers, engineers and educators interested in constructing and using low-cost mobile platforms that can be instrumented with a number of sensors and perform a variety of tasks.