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Technical Paper

Development of Unmanned Autonomous Vehicle Control System Based on 1D Image Sensor

1998-02-23
980611
An automatically guided vehicle by vision that recognizes the two white guidelines has been developed. The vehicle can run on a mildly bumpy grass course like as golf course up to 3 km/hour, staying in between two white lines with span of 3m to 3.6m avoiding obstacles within lanes. In this paper, the construction of the vehicle, the sensing strategy, the control algorithm, as well as practical aspects of the implementation are described. Employment of 1D image sensor which detects two white lanes yields the remarkable feature of the proposed system. The advantage of 1-D image sensor is the simplicity as well as significant reduction of the task for image processing in comparison with the conventional 2D-camera vision. Through the actual experiments at International Ground Robotics Competition '97, which held at Oakland University in June, we demonstrated the superior performance compared with conventional 2D vision type vehicles.
Technical Paper

Implementation of Human-Like Driving for Autonomous Vehicle

2001-03-05
2001-01-0805
The sensing and control scheme of autonomous vehicle, learned from the human driving is considered. To implement human driving manners, we imitate “characteristics of the human eye” and “human driving rules extracted from driver’s feeling”. Following two approaches are considered; 1. Reduction of image processing load of FFT picture compression technique by the manner of human eye sensitivity. 2. Simplified driving rules extracted from the human driving manner correspond to the energy minimum optimal control.
Technical Paper

Development of Active Contour Extraction for Autonomous Vehicle Lane Detection at Outdoor Environment

2001-03-05
2001-01-0807
The project of the ITS (Intelligent Transport Systems) has been actively promoted researches and developments for the safe and efficient traffic. In the project, development of the lane detection algorithm is indispensable. Under outdoor environment, it is very difficult to detect a lane and to distinguish the various obstacles by vision systems, due to optical problems. Here we propose the Active Contour Model Method, which is known as the most robust method to detect the lane contour. The vehicle based on an electric wheelchair for handicapped persons was used to examine the validity of the method.
Technical Paper

Accurate Predictive Algorithm for Air Bag Expansion by Fusing the Conventional Predictive Algorithm and Proximity Sensor

1998-02-23
980907
The airbag systems in the first generation had been developed and are equipped in real automobiles. This paper is aimed at describing a new airbag scheme that might be categorized in the 1.5 generation. The airbag system always needs some delay time between the triggering and complete expanding. The existence of the delay time is the main cause of difficulty for accurate airbag triggering. The predictive airbag expanding algorithm that compensates the delay time was proposed and the validity was examined in the first generation development. Development of the 1.5 generation airbag systems with the higher performance are our next problem. Airbag equipped in automobiles must receive driver's body at the optimal timing when collision by which the effect of airbag is extremely improved. The more accurate predictive airbag system is required.
Technical Paper

Optimal Timing to Trigger an Airbag

1993-03-01
930242
An airbag upon collision of automobiles must finish expanding at the time when the driver's body arrives at the surface of the expanded airbag from the normal position and it must receive the body softly. Either early or late expansion reduce the effect. Determination of the optimal timing for trigger the airbag is quite important. But it is a difficult job, due to the time delay in the bag filling with the gas after collision. This paper focuses on the issue of the airbag technology to how to find the optimal trigger timing and presents a new and straightforward algorithm to determine the timing by introducing the concept of the prediction. The algorithm first predicts how the driver's body will move in the future time for a time equivalent to the delay time and triggers the airbag by the predicted information so that it can compensate the delay by the airbag operation.
Technical Paper

Reaction Forces of Switches and Push Feeling

1996-02-01
960945
Comfortable man-machine interfaces are required for current advanced vehicle systems. This paper aims at investigating the relation between reaction force of switches and human switch operation feeling. We investigate how each reaction force of switches effects the touch feeling of switches via sensory test. The results of factor analysis for the questionnaire data obtained in the sensory test show that the most substantial factor is the feeling expressed by the words “Clear”, “Smooth”, “Stiff”, and “Clicking”. Finally, each feeling described by each word is directly evaluated by reaction force or vice versa on dual scales. The dual scale for reaction forces and degree of feeling can be directly used for designing comfortable switch.
Technical Paper

Volume Measurement of Liquid in a Deformed Tank-Application to the Fuel Meter of Automobiles

1987-10-01
871964
This paper describes how to directly and accurately measure liquid volume in a deformed tank which has gas-leaking pinholes, whose attitude changes and walls vibrate, and in which liquid sloshes. The proposed method is different from conventional methods that use level meters, and makes the measurement possible without setting level detecting devices such as a float in the tank. The method makes use of Boyle's law, and the measurement procedure is as follows: (a) first, we determine the volume of gas in the tank by measuring gage pressure increased by compressing the volume of gas in the tank, and (b) next, we find the volume of liquid by subtracting the volume of gas from capacity of the tank. This demonstrates that one standard measurement system can be applied to a variety of tanks with a certain range of volume capacities, whereas conventional methods using level meters require designing and manufacturing different detecting devices depending on the shapes of the tank.
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