Perception and control strategies for driving utility vehicles with a humanoid robot

This paper describes the hardware and software components of a general-purpose humanoid robot system for autonomously driving several different types of utility vehicles. The robot recognizes which vehicle it is in, localizes itself with respect to the dashboard, and self-aligns in order to interface with the steering wheel and accelerator pedal. Low- and higher-level methods are presented for speed control, environment perception, and trajectory planning and following suitable for operation in planar areas with discrete obstacles as well as along road-like paths.