GPS navigation based autonomous driving system design for intelligent vehicles

The main objective of this paper is to design and implement a real-time autonomous navigation system for intelligent vehicles by integrating a real-time kinematics differential global position system (RTK-DGPS) and a laser range finder. Firstly, a fuzzy logic algorithm for target position tracking is proposed to achieve the human driving concept. In addition, an actuator is equipped in the experimental vehicle TAIWAN iTS-1 so that the steering wheel can be controlled to let the vehicle follows a desired trajectory in digital maps. A laser range finder is used to detect obstacles in front of the vehicle for warning announcement and collision avoidance. A human machine interface is also built up to provide information from sensors. The performance and accuracy of the proposed system is verified by real-time experimental results.