The Next Generation of Unmanned Ground Vehicles

• Main Authors: Geoff Hester, Chris Smith, Pete Day, Antony Waldock
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2012-05-01
• Series: Measurement + Control
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/002029401204500404

Over the last decade, the development of Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) has received significant attention through technology competitions, such as the DARPA Grand Challenges, where an unmanned vehicle autonomously navigated across a desert or through semiurban roads. Although this marked a significant step forward in autonomous navigation, the current generation of UGVs are only capable of operating in controlled environments where the dynamics of a scene are well-understood. For example in both of the DARPA Grand Challenges, the participants were given detailed maps and the environment was carefully controlled during the competition. The next generation of UGVs will need to operate in uncontrolled environments where the terrain and infrastructure is uncertain and humans could be present. This paper discusses the challenges and current developments in the areas of sensing, localisation and planning to realise the next generation of UGVs.