Abstract:

This thesis involves designing an autonomous micro-electric vehicle, a controller design, and implementing it on single-board controllers. Here, the micro-electric vehicle has defined as the four-wheeled vehicles, which are less than 4 feet in length and 2 feet wide, having speeds that could guarantee stable operation. However, designing such vehicle has some fundamental limitations: (i) currently there are no models available for studying their stability in terms of their dimensions, maximum speed, etc., (ii) control systems for autonomous path-planning and implementing the commands in lower-level controls overcoming the torque fluctuations which are quite frequent on roads, and (iii) design of the vehicle and realization of the control design on cost-efficient hardware is challenging. To overcome these challenges, the thesis organizes the design problem into the following subsystems: (i) mechanical design, (ii) electric drive train design, (iii) control systems design, (iv) autonomous systems and control, and (v) instrumentation systems. Further, deployment aspects such as the realization of the control, including the electronic control unit (ECU) design, mechanical fabrication, parameter selection (vehicle velocity, size, torque, etc.), component selection, controller realization, and other aspects are discussed.