GPS World, August 2013

Photo Brian Geiger COVER STORY Autonomous Navigation Robot Target on Its Back Two Autonomous Vehicles Seek Safe Avoidance in Critical Tests A new state of the art research center runs car makers safety systems through their paces in tandem with a soft target robot that can be crash impacted without adverse effects Precise positioning and exact repeatability of test sequences are key criteria Paul Perrone Perrone Robotics T he Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has undertaken a 30 million expansion project at its Vehicle Research Center near Washington D C enlarging and enhancing a state of the art vehicle test track and building a new 700 x 300 foot 213 x 91 meter covered track for weather resistant testing The VRC will use new robotic and positioning technologies to achieve required levels of precision and repeatability for vehicle testing of frontal collision avoidance and other safety systems Tests of both the same and different vehicles must be conducted under identical controlled conditions for the results to have comparable fidelity Crash tests and research conducted at the VRC help drive life saving improvements in vehicle designs The new facility will enable staff to evaluate emerging automated vehicle technology in commercial vehicle systems intended to prevent crashes or lessen their severity with the goal of encouraging the entire industry to adopt the most effective new features Safety systems in vehicles to be tested include the following Adaptive cruise control Collision imminent braking Lane departure warning correction Other automated technologies Such functions represent semiautomated functions aboard vehicles now on the road The system is also designed to address and test the full spectrum of semi to fully automated vehicles addressing evolving levels of autonomy and ultimately producing driverless vehicle technology IIHS has contracted Perrone Robotics Inc PRI to deliver a robotic system for testing such vehicles PRI develops new applications using its MAX robotics and suite of automation software building blocks MAX enables rapid integration of a range of sensor and actuator types and has evolved with several frameworks including MAXUGV for unmanned ground vehicles PRI has used MAX UGV to build automated passenger cars all terrain vehicles tractors custom platforms and rockstar Neil Youngs long range electric LincVolt a converted 1959 Lincoln Continental GPS World August 2013 www gpsworld com 30