Demonstration Platform for Trajectory Planning of an Autonomous Nonholonomic Skid-Steer System for Investigating Spatial Phenomena

This paper presents a platform built to demonstrate the functionality of a trajectory planning algorithm intended for optimal sampling of spatial phenomena. The installation of this algorithm on a rover is the first step in a series of integration instances with various autonomous vehicles. The platform, consisting of a mobile unit (a skid-steer rover equipped with an autopilot module, onboard computer, radio frequency (RF) sensing unit, and a GPS/Magnetometer sensor) and static RF transmission modules frequently emitting empty packets, simulates expected implementation on larger-scale systems. Using the “Received Signal Strength Indication” (RSSI) from the broadcast packets received by the mobile platform from the arbitrarily placed static RF transmitters, a software recreation of the data field takes place, and a global maximum is sought by the trajectory planning algorithm to go towards during the course of traversal. Recreation of the rover’s traversal demonstrates the tendency of the trajectories towards the global maximum in an efficient manner.