THE PROJECT
Mechanical design, electronics, controls, and fabrication come together differently in every build. This record describes the work documented for this project.
What was developed
Built a ROS, Gazebo, and RViz workflow for an autonomous vehicle tasked with reaching GPS waypoints in order. Separate nodes handled coordinate conversion, waypoint distance, heading error, speed decisions, and visualization.
Latitude and longitude were converted to UTM coordinates, and heading was transformed for the robotics frame. The vehicle advanced to the next waypoint within one metre. Speed logic used distance to the current and previous waypoint to avoid a sudden increase after passing a target. RViz displayed both the waypoints and the driven path.
PROJECT NOTE
Simulation results: the route completed in 7 of 10 runs, with 6 runs finishing in under one minute.