SmartTer

The vehicle called SmartTer (Smart all Terrain Vehicle) is based on a standard Smart car that has been enhanced for fully autonomous driving in somewhat flat outdoor environments. It is equipped with two frontal SICK laser scanner sensors for obstacle avoidance and local navigation, a rotating SICK (3D) and omnidirectional camera for 3D mapping, an inertial measurement system (IMU) for motion and pose estimation and a GPS system as absolute reference. The SmartTer is intended to establish a fully 3D map (using the 3D laser and omni-came images) while fully autonomously driving along the ELROB 2006 route. The navigation tasks (local planning, obstacle avoidance, vehicle control) are expected to run in real time at update rates of around 10-30 Hz. The 3D map will be updated around once every second, enabling for global path planning and object recognition (scene analysis) at reasonably high rates.

The development of the SmartTer has been started in October. The system with all sensors is expected to be ready by the end of march. Real world testing with all basic functionalities is planned for April 2006. The final demonstration will take place on May the 15th at the ELROB challenge.