Position estimation and path control of an autonomous land vehicle

A method for estimating the vehicle position by using a fiber optic gyroscope and wheel rotation encoders, as wall as a method for controlling the vehicle path using a path attracting force model, has been proposed. A method for improving the estimation accuracy by using the Global Positioning System (GPS), along with the above sensors, has also been proposed. An autonomous mobile robot is developed bases on a manually driven lawn-mower, and the performance of the proposed methods has been studied experimentally. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed methods, and practicality as an autonomous lawn-mower has been confirmed.