Did You Know LabVIEW Could Drive a Car?
Print
Table of Contents
Did you know that Team Victor Tango, a partnership between Virginia Tech and TORC Technologies, used NI LabVIEW software to win third place at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Urban Challenge? The team designed and created its autonomous vehicle, Odin, using the LabVIEW FPGA, LabVIEW Real-Time, and LabVIEW Control Design and Simulation modules; NI CompactRIO; NI CompactDAQ; and an NI touch panel.
The DARPA Urban Challenge is an autonomous vehicle research and development program with the goal of developing technology that keeps soldiers off the battlefield and out of danger. The program features autonomous ground vehicles maneuvering in a mock city environment, executing simulated military supply missions while merging into moving traffic, navigating traffic circles, negotiating busy intersections, and avoiding obstacles.
This autonomous vehicle technology is also being considered for other application areas such as farming, construction, passenger vehicle design, and oil exploration.
Multicore, Heterogeneous Computing
LabVIEW applications on two HP dual quad-core servers performed sensor data and image processing and ran decision-making and planning modules.
CompactRIO managed the lowerlevel vehicle interface.
An NI touch panel in the dashboard helped switch between autonomous and manual operation modes.
Sensor Data Acquisition and Processing
LabVIEW applications running on multicore servers with Linux® and Windows OSs processed and analyzed data from three IBEO ALASCA multiplanar LIDARs, four SICK LMS LIDARs, two IEEE 1394 cameras, and one NovAtel GPS/INS.
Ethernet cables acted as the interface for all sensors.
JAUS Interoperable Communications
LabVIEW helped develop and deploy a set of tools for JAUS, an autonomous ground vehicle standard for passing messages and status information among various vehicle subsystems.
This SAE AS-4 JAUS interoperable architecture was designed for use in other autonomous applications as well.
Drive-by-Wire System
Team VictorTango used CompactRIO to implement the vehicle’s drive-by-wire system.
Extended Kalman filtering and PID algorithms, designed in the LabVIEW Control Design and Simulation Module, determined the appropriate throttle, brake, and steering signals.
NI CompactDAQ empirically obtained the drive-by-wire voltage profiles.
View a webcast n graphical system design for autonomous vehicles.
Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.
This article first appeared in the Q2 2008 issue of Instrumentation Newsletter.
Print
Reader Comments | Submit a comment »
Legal
This material is protected under the copyright laws of the U.S. and other countries and any uses not in conformity with the copyright laws are prohibited, including but not limited to reproduction, DOWNLOADING, duplication, adaptation and transmission or broadcast by any media, devices or processes.