PATH Current Research: AVCS: AVCS Enabling Technologies

Vehicle Control Experiments and Field Tests
Vehicle Control

1. VEHICLE CONTROL EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH AND SUPPORT

Task Order 4227

Dan Empey, California PATH
empey@path2.its.berkeley.edu, http://www.path.berkeley.edu:81/people/staff/empey_daniel.html

A significant portion of the AVCSS work at PATH requires experimental vehicles to support the research, development, testing and validation of the control systems. This project continues the support that the Vehicle Control Experimental Group provides for ongoing automated vehicle research work needed by the various proposed and continuing projects at PATH. The group consists of specialists in control systems, communications, electronics, software development and implementation, as well as hardware development, integration and maintenance. The project covers general MOU support, support of the heavy truck projects, fault-tolerant controls for buses and trucks, compression braking control, truck emissions and fuel consumption, integration of vehicle control and communication, integration of GPS/INS and magnets for vehicle control, adaptive cruise control experiments, communication systems, testing of fault detection algorithms, fault diagnosis for vehicle control, and evaluation of longitudinal range and range rate sensors. Maintenance and upgrading of the fleet of PATH test vehicles is required on a continuing basis, and is also covered under this project.

2. PATH Demo 2002

Task Order 4228

Dan Empey, California PATH
empey@path2.its.berkeley.edu, http://www.path.berkeley.edu:81/people/staff/empey_daniel.html

This project is intended to jump-start the Demonstration 2002 of PATH development of heavy-duty vehicles. It will first develop the system requirements, such as actuator bandwidth and computer input-output specifications, of the demo vehicles. Vehicle development tasks that include the development of steering actuator and brake actuator will be initiated. Lateral and longitudinal control algorithms will be experimentally tested to verify their performance and robustness on an existing heavy-duty vehicle.