Development of a model predictive controller for motion planning in a dynamic urban search and rescue environment

A key challenge for SaR robotics is to avoid dynamic obstacles in cluttered environments, with limited and noisy information. In this research, a controller for SaR robots is developed by coupling a local heuristic motion planner with a model predictive control (MPC) based trajectory tracker. Constraint tightening and tube-based control are used...

Dynamically feasible data-driven trajectory generation for high performance control of robot manipulators

Robot manipulators are significantly more accurate than their human counterparts and enhance the repeatability of various tasks. However, manufactures still provide reduced information regarding the robot controller functions, typically affecting robots' predictability. Additionally, industrial examples show that system transparency could be...

Predicting aircraft trajectory uncertainties for terminal airspace design evaluation

The terminal airspace that surrounds an airport is the area with high flight density and complex structure. Aircraft are asked to follow the standard arrival and departure routes in terminal airspace, yet the actual trajectories may deviate due to air traffic control (ATC) instructions, pilots' decisions, surveillance and flying performance...

Assessment of architectures for Automatic Train Operation driving functions

Automatic Train Operation (ATO) is well-known in urban railways and gets increasing interest from mainline railways at present to improve capacity and punctuality. A main function of ATO is the train trajectory generation that specifies the speed profile over the given running route considering the timetable and the characteristics of the...

A Low-speed, Low-acceleration Controller for Cost-effective Reaction-wheels: Design, Simulation & Implementation

With the requirements for CubeSats increasing, a push towards utilizing high­performance equipment has never been greater. Incorporating these equipment in an environment that is cost­, space­ and power­constrained, is challenging. Simultaneously, high­performance equipment require high pointing­accuracy and low­jitter. This thesis proposes the...

Emergency Escape Manoeuvre of a Faulty Truck in a Platoon Formation Moving in Highway

The platooning of trucks provides significant benefits in the existing transportation systems regarding social, economic and environmental aspects. Due to the platoon's high dependence on sensors, it is critically important to have fault-tolerant countermeasures that deal efficiently with failures by achieving minimal risk condition. This thesis...

Wind optimised trajectory generator for automated wind turbine inspector drones

To be able to increase the safety and efficiency of automated wind turbine inspection a robust solution is needed that takes into account wind during trajectory planning. This paper presents such a solution in the form of an algorithm, which uses Dijkstra’s algorithm as a basis for optimisation. To allow for online replanning the horizontal and...

A Framework to Evaluate Aircraft Trajectory Generation Methods

Aircraft trajectory generation is a widely addressed problem with applications including emergency trajectory generation, collision risk models, air traffic flow and capacity management or airspace design. State of the art methods to generate individual trajectories and optimise some performance or emergency criterion may lack of realism with...

Collision-free predictive trajectory generation for automated four-wheel-steered mini-buses

The autonomous transit market is on the rise. 2getthere is one of the lead suppliers of automated people moving systems, located in the Netherlands. Their vehicles can be classified as SAE level 4 automation (Highly Automated) vehicles. This thesis is concerned with the dynamic trajectory generation for 2getthere’s Group Rapid Transport (GRT)...

Warping model predictive control for application in control of a real airborne wind energy system

Fast online generation of feasible and optimal reference trajectories is crucial in tracking model predictive control, especially for stability and optimality in presence of a time varying parameter. In this paper, in order to circumvent the operational efforts of handling a discrete set of precomputed trajectories and switching between them,...

Probabilistic Motion Planning in Uncertain and Dynamic Environments

Autonomous driving is one of the popular and advanced research fields aiming to reduce the mortality rate and improve the welfare and efficiency of commuters' lives. As one of the important research branches of self-driving cars, this thesis focuses on the motion planning problems in dynamic and uncertain environments. The challenge of motion...

Safe nonlinear trajectory generation for parallel autonomy with a dynamic vehicle model

High-end vehicles are already equipped with safety systems, such as assistive braking and automatic lane following, enhancing vehicle safety. Yet, these current solutions can only help in low-complexity driving situations. In this paper, we introduce a parallel autonomy, or shared control, framework that computes safe trajectories for an...

Trajectory Generation for Trucks for Merging Manoeuvres on the Highway

Trucks are largely used in road transportation worldwide in recent decades, and make great contributions to the GDP. Statistics shows that a large number of truck-involved accidents occur related to the ramp in merging manoeuvres on the highway. The accidents involved in trucks can lead to a considerable economic cost. The development of...

Real-time receding horizon trajectory generation for long heavy vehicle combinations on highways

The so-called A-double long heavy vehicle combination is a 32 meter long and up to 80 tonnes heavy double-trailer truck widely used in Canada and Australia today, and will be more abundant on the road also in Europe in the near future. They have the potential to decrease road transport cost, traffic congestion and generate lower emissions than...