Path planning for automated guided vehicle using distance based approach

Path Planning is the fundamental aspect of every autonomous vehicle and is used for the process of breaking down a desired movement task into discrete motions that satisfy movement constraints and possibly optimize some aspect of the movement. This paper presents distance based methodology for the autonomous vehicles to carry out the motion planning for the predefined path. The vehicle is made to travel from source to destination by taking inputs from multiple sensors such as RADAR, LIDAR and Camera and also the battery level through Controller Area Network(CAN) bus which uses a message oriented transmission protocol. The actuation of braking system is controlled by sending the actuating signal from the Electronic Control Unit (ECU) and the steering system is actuated by sending the steering angles in terms of degrees. In distance based approach the travelled distance is compared each and every time with the actual distance to be travelled and vehicle is made to traverse the pre-programmed path. The proposed technique also considers the objects which cause collisions and provides a measure to avoid collision. On the basis of battery level the autonomous vehicle is able to cover the predetermined path. It alerts the braking and motor control system on detection of the obstacle. Thus the vehicle traces the pre-defined path making it an autonomous vehicle.