Construction And Testing Of An Autonomous Solar Powered Car

In order to promote the development of renewable energy and take advantage of the new technologies for the benefit of sustainability, both the design and the manufacture methodologies of an experimental solar powered autonomous vehicle is presented.

An autonomous vehicle, or a driverless vehicle, is one that is able to operate itself and perform necessary functions without any human intervention, through ability to sense its surroundings. An autonomous vehicle utilizes a fully automated driving system in order to allow the vehicle to respond to external conditions that a human driver would manage. The main aim of this work is to build and test this device.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER PAGE

TITLE PAGE

APPROVAL PAGE

DEDICATION

ACKNOWELDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

CHAPTER ONE

• INTRODUCTION
• BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT
• PROBLEM STATEMENT
• AIM AND OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT
• SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT
• ADVANTAGES OF THE PROJECT
• LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
• APPLICATION OF THE PROJECT
• SCOPE OF THE PROJECT
• PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
• DEFINITION OF TERMS
• METHODOLOGY
• PROJECT ORGANISATION

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

• REVIEW OF THE STUDY
• REVIEW OF RELATED WORKS
• AUTONOMOUS VERSES AUTOMATED
• CLASSIFICATION OF AUTONOMOUS CAR
• TECHNOLOGY OF AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES
• THEORETICAL REVIEW OF SOLAR CELL
• REVIEW OF SOLAR CELL EFFICIENCY
• REVIEW OF SOLAR CELL MATERIALS

CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

• SYSTEM BLOCK DIAGRAM
• BLOCK DIAGRAM EXPLANATION
• SYSTEM OPERATION DESCRIPTION
• SYSTEM CIRCUIT DIAGRAM
• SOFTWARE USED
• SYSTEM FLOW CHAT
• SYSTEM CODE

CHAPTER FOUR

4.0      TEST AND RESULT ANALYSIS

• CONSTRUCTION PROCEDURE AND TESTING ANALYSIS
• CASING
• ASSEMBLING OF SECTIONS
• PACKAGING
• TESTING OF SYSTEM OPERATION
• RESULT

CHAPTER FIVE

• SUMMARY
• CONCLUSION
• RECOMMENDATION
• REFERENCES

CHAPTER ONE

1.0                                                        INTRODUCTION

1.1                                           BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Automated vehicles are increasingly present in modern society. Already, prototype cars have been automated and judged reliable enough to drive autonomously under standard driving conditions. Beyond cars, there is a diversity of vehicles suitable for automation and across vehicle type there are common guidelines identified to standardize the process of making an autonomous vehicle.

An autonomous car is a vehicle capable of sensing its environment and operating without human involvement. A human passenger is not required to take control of the vehicle at any time, nor is a human passenger required to be present in the vehicle at all. An autonomous car can go anywhere a traditional car goes and do everything that an experienced human driver does.

Autonomous cars rely on sensors, actuators, complex algorithms, machine learning systems, and powerful processors to execute software.

Autonomous cars create and maintain a map of their surroundings based on a variety of sensors situated in different parts of the vehicle. Radar sensors monitor the position of nearby vehicles. Video cameras detect traffic lights, read road signs, track other vehicles, and look for pedestrians. Lidar (light detection and ranging) sensors bounce pulses of light off the car’s surroundings to measure distances, detect road edges, and identify lane markings. Ultrasonic sensors in the wheels detect curbs and other vehicles when parking.

Sophisticated software then processes all this sensory input, plots a path, and sends instructions to the car’s actuators, which control acceleration, braking, and steering. Hard-coded rules, obstacle avoidance algorithms, predictive modeling, and object recognition help the software follow traffic rules and navigate obstacles.

1.2                                                  PROBLEM STATEMENT

Vehicle crashes cause many deaths every year, and automated vehicles could potentially decrease the number of casualties as the software used in them is likely to make fewer errors in comparison to humans. Autonomous vehicle technology may be able to provide certain advantages compared to human-driven vehicles. One such potential advantage is that they could provide increased safety on the road. A decrease in the number of accidents could also reduce traffic congestion, which is a further potential advantage posed by autonomous vehicles. Autonomous driving can also achieve this by the removal of human behaviours that cause blockages on the road, specifically stop-and-go traffic.

1.3                                          AIM/OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The aim of the work is to build and test of a low cost “Autonomous Solar Electric Vehicle”. The objectives are to:

• allow students to learn and gain experience in the fields of control, power electronics and embedded computation
• Allow researchers to investigate, implement and validate advanced control concepts related to electric vehicles.
• Carry out a Power electronics and control research- energy efficiency
• Study vehicle motion control – stability, trajectory control
• Design and test an autonomous vehicle control – autonomous driving, obstacle avoidance

1.4                                           SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Carrying out this study as a student of this department has increase our knowledge about different engineering disciplines including automatic control, power electronics, electric drives, mechatronics, telecommunication and embedded computation.

1.5                           ADVANTAGES OF THE PROJECT

This device provides an increased safety on the road in that it is not prone to human error that always lead to accident such as wrong overtaking, over-speeding, intake of alcohol while driving etc.

Another possible advantage of automated driving is that people who are not able to drive – due to factors like age and disabilities – could be able to use automated cars as more convenient transport systems.

Additional advantages that come with an autonomous car are elimination of driving fatigue and being able to sleep during overnight journeys.

1.6                               LIMITATION OF THE STUDY

Few problems discovered in this technology are as follows:

1. The cost of buying or building this car may be costly compare to an automated car.
2. An uncontrollable auto crash can occur when the car fails.

• The device can work efficiently only if the presence of the Sun is strong.

1. Weather Conditions: If there’s a layer of snow on the road, lane dividers disappear. The cameras and sensors track lane markings will stop working perfectly if the markings are obscured by water, oil, ice, or debris.
2. Traffic Conditions and Laws: Will autonomous cars will have trouble in tunnels or on bridges, in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
3. Accident Liability: This car does not have a dashboard or a steering wheel, so a human passenger would not even have the option to take control of the vehicle in an emergency.

1.7                                                   SCOPE OF THE STUDY

For implementation and testing purposes a reduced-​scale vehicle has been built. It consists of an wooden frame holding the solar panel, rechargeable batteries, super-​capacitors, two independently driven front wheels and four printed circuit boards (PCBs) housing the power electronic circuits and control software. An Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), cheap camera and sensors (for obstacle detection) provides the necessary sensory information.

1.8                                            APPLICATION OF THE STUDY

This study can be useful to researchers and as well as student in engineering disciplines especially in automatic control, power electronics, electric drives, mechatronics, telecommunication and embedded computation.

1.9                                                PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The purpose of building this project is to increase safety on the high way, to experience low traveling cost in that it uses solar energy and to help people with physical limitations travel easier.

1.10                                               DEFINITION OF TERMS

AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE : is one that can drive itself from a starting point to a predetermined destination in “autopilot” mode using various in-vehicle technologies and sensors, including adaptive cruise control, active steering (steer by wire), anti-lock braking systems (brake by wire), GPS navigation technology, lasers, etc.

Computer Vision: This is the technology which helps vehicles to ‘see’, and employs a wide range of systems, including lidar, radar, and visible-light cameras.

Driver Monitoring System: Before cars become fully autonomous, they will use their enhanced intelligence to keep an eye on the human driver. This means systems which check that the driver is awake by monitoring their inputs to the steering wheel. Beyond this, cars will start to use cameras to check the driver is awake, and sober.

EV: Short for electric vehicle – meaning one which is powered entirely by electricity.

Electrified vehicle: Used to refer to vehicles which are powered by a hybrid system, made up of a gasoline engine and an electric motor. When many car companies say their fleets will be “electrified” by a certain year, they are mostly referring to every car being a hybrid.

Radar: Radar is a system that uses radio waves to detect other objects. Self-driving cars can be equipped with radar to help the vehicle read the area around it.

Regenerative braking: Also known as brake regen, this is a system used by electric cars to harvest energy which would otherwise be wasted during braking, and feeding it back into the battery. Essentially, electric cars turn their motors into generators when you lift off the accelerator. This has the effect of applying the brakes, and means many electric cars can be driven with just the accelerator pedal for most of the time. You simply press more to accelerate faster, then lift the pedal more to brake more firmly.

Self-Driving: self-driving is a vehicle that can tell what’s around it and operate completely without any human involvement.

Sensors: In self-driving cars, sensors are devices that a vehicle uses to detect what’s around it—from obstacles in the road such as pedestrians to other cars. Think of these as part of a self-driving car’s eyes. These details can also link to GPS technology to tell a vehicle where it is on the road.

Software: The brain of your self-driving car, software is a program, a series of commands that runs a computer or a similar device. Here, the computer is an autonomous car.

1.11                                       METHODOLOGY

To achieve the aim and objectives of this work, the following are the steps involved:

1. Study of the previous work on the project so as to improve it efficiency.
2. Draw a block diagram.

• Test for continuity of components and devices,

1. programming of microcontroller
2. Design and calculation for the work was carried out.
3. Studying of various component used in circuit.

• Construct the whole circuit.
• Finally, the whole device was cased and final test was carried out.

1.12                                                      PROJECT ORGANISATION

The work is organized as follows: chapter one discuses the introductory part of the work, chapter two presents the literature review of the study, chapter three describes the methods applied, chapter four discusses the results of the work, chapter five summarizes the research outcomes and the recommendations.