Development of Steering and Braking Mechanism for Shell Eco Marathon Autonomous Vehicle

Abstract

Self-Driving Cars are poised for accelerated adoption, with potential benefits such as better overall traffic management and environmental sustainability. Self-driving cars create and keep a map of their environment based on the input form the variety of sensors located at multiple parts of the vehicle. The software then processes all these sensory inputs, based on which instructions are sent for the vehicle’s actuation. Vehicle uses visual inertial audiometry for sensing its environment, convolutional neural network for traffic sign recognition and stereo vision-based 3D object detection to plan its local and global path, which is followed by the actuation of low-level controller. In this project we aimed at developing steering and braking mechanism for an autonomous vehicle, we also developed lateral and longitudinal controls for the automation of steering and braking. afterwards we implemented the controllers for the testing and validation. We designed chassis for steering and braking integration. Purpose was the validation and testing of steering and braking, as chassis provides the mounting points for different components for their Integration. The components for steering and braking as well as the chassis were modeled in solid works, analysis was carried out using ANSYS workbench. After confirming that our design is safe, under different load conditions, we fabricated our system, the manufacturing techniques employed include Cutting, milling, drilling, 3D printing and metal laser Cutting. In the coming sections we will address these systems separately. Chapter 1 is introduction, Chapter 2 deals with braking system, chapter 3 steering system, chapter 4 the integration of both systems through the chassis, followed by results, conclusions, and recommendations. In braking and steering system chapters we will mention detailed intro, literature review, methodology, design, and Analysis.