AUTONOMOUS SOLUTIONS INC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: A18-155

Description

As autonomous vehicles become more prevalent in day-to-day military and industry operations, the technology surrounding functionally-safe autonomous subsystems must become increasingly reliable. A vehicle’s kinetic energy must be safely dissipated during a stop. Steering and braking must be done intelligently to maintain vehicle control and mitigate vehicle wear and tear. There are many factors to consider when bringing a vehicle to a stop, including terrain, vehicle dynamics, mission goals, and obstacle avoidance. We propose to further harden an "integrated" intelligent stopping system developed in phase 1 and extend this system to an "isolated" stopping system that does not require external software components. Autonomous Solutions, Inc. (ASI) is a leader in developing vehicle automation kits. The work proposed here will allow for more sophisticated stopping based on vehicle state, vehicle dynamics and capability, and environmental factors. This work includes identifying necessary steps to get this emergency stop system safety-certified. Of special interest to ASI are using terrain information and surface friction estimates together with the vehicle dynamics to bring the vehicle to a safe stop without incurring unnecessary wear and tear.