Active cross-path correlation for autonomous vehicle path following

Abstract

We have developed and demonstrated a technique to allow a follower vehicle to closely repeat the path established by a leader vehicle. The leader records the range-to-obstruction to either or both sides as well as its own estimated position and orientation. A non-model-based technique is used to correlate the follower's estimate of position to the leader's. The technique is tolerant of changes in the environment between passes of the leader and follower, and eliminates the correspondence problem in a model-based system where both the leader and follower need to correctly identify a particular object as being the same landmark. In this paper, we describe the active cross-path correlation algorithm and initial experimental results.