Active cross-path correlation for autonomous vehicle path following

We have developed and demonstrated a technique to allow a follower vehicle to closely repeat the path established by a leader vehicle. The leader records the range-to-obstruction to either or both sides as well as its own estimated position and orientation. A non-model-based technique is used to correlate the follower´s estimate of position to the leader´s. The technique is tolerant of changes in the environment between passes of the leader and follower, and eliminates the correspondence problem in a model-based system where both the leader and follower need to correctly identify a particular object as being the same landmark. In this paper, we describe the active cross-path correlation algorithm and initial experimental results