A Hierarchical Route Guidance Framework for Off-Road Connected Vehicles

Abstract

A new framework for route guidance, as part of a path decision support tool, for off-road driving scenarios is presented in this paper. The algorithm accesses information gathered prior to and during a mission which are stored as layers of a central map. The algorithm incorporates a priori knowledge of the low resolution soil and elevation information and real-time high-resolution information from on-board sensors. The challenge of high computational cost to find the optimal path over a large-scale high-resolution map is mitigated by the proposed hierarchical path planning algorithm. A dynamic programming (DP) method generates the globally optimal path approximation based on low-resolution information. The optimal cost-to-go from each grid cell to the destination is calculated by back-stepping from the target and stored. A model predictive control algorithm (MPC) operates locally on the vehicle to find the optimal path over a moving radial horizon. The MPC algorithm uses the stored global optimal cost-to-go map in addition to high resolution and locally available information. Efficacy of the developed algorithm is demonstrated in scenarios simulating static and moving obstacles avoidance, path finding in condition-time-variant environments, eluding adversarial line of sight detection, and connected fleet cooperation.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Feb 13, 2018
Source ID
10.1115/1.4038905

Entities

People

  • Angshuman Goswami
  • Ardalan Vahidi
  • Chen Zhang
  • Judhajit Roy
  • Nianfeng Wan
  • Paramsothy Jayakumar

Organizations

  • Clemson University
  • Ford Motor Company
  • United States Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Operations Research
  • Robotics and Automation.