Positioning and guidance of ground vehicle by use of laser and corner cube

This paper proposes two passive reference methods of position finding for an automatic guidance system of a ground vehicle using laser beam and corner cube(retro-reflector). One is a positioning method for a vehicle guided along a flexible and arbitrary path. This system is composed of corner cubes set on pre-determined three reference points of ground and a laser beam scanned on a vehicle. Another is a positioning method for a vehicle (automobile) guided within a traffic lane on roadway, which is used for a compensations of the positional errors caused by a self- contained measuring system. This method is realized by a chain of corner cube pairs set on both sides of roadway and four laser beams installed on a vehicle. The experimental results using our prototype system and the simulation results are shown with some discussions about the feasibility of real system using our methods.