Remote controlled cars
The automotive industry has been driven by technology innovation in different parts of vehicles and this trend will continue across all major areas such as chassis, power train, electronics, fuel-efficient engines and safety, among others. However technical developments are going to be inevitable not only in the advent of new modular assembly techniques, which will transform manufacturing systems and methods but also in intelligent automobile transportation systems.
Recent studies by Frost & Sullivan, has shown the growing popularity of advanced driver assistance facilities, safety and comfort features in vehicles, continuous innovation and adoption of new systems and the need to incorporate artificial intelligence technologies to remain competitive in the automotive industry.
An innovation, which will revolutionise the automotive industry, will be the establishment of a link between the different systems, thus enabling the creation of new functionalities, more accurate outputs and reliability. Introducing intelligent electronic devices into these integrated systems will enable independent decision-making and provide maximum comfort and safety to the driver.
These systems will share information and also act intelligently by taking their own decisions and thus support enhanced driving. All these developments will help researchers to move ahead and introduce a computer controlled intelligent remote controlled car, which will move from the garage of the house on its own, travel through the congested traffic, deliver the goods or gifts to the destination and return on its own without any human presence at the controls.
Talking carA predecessor to the future remote controlled car is the talking car recently unveiled by the German carmaker BMW, which helps the driver to communicate effectively with his vehicle so as to avoid traffic jams. This BMW 3-Series convertible, fitted with the auto dialogue system TALK has an onboard computer system, which is fed with information selected from about 10,000 detectors monitoring the traffic situation along German motorways round the clock. The intelligent auto dialogue system TALK picks the necessary information required for a particular route from a central computer and will offer the driver an alternative route if necessary. Studies have shown that German motorists spend an average of about 70 hours per year in traffic jams wasting time and fuel because of increasing traffic density on German roads. Even though radio traffic information has been introduced several years ago, the TALK system, a Europe-wide research project, is very fast and information is transmitted over the car cell phone.
Remote controlled devices, having its origins in military, atomic and space applications, have now entered the civilian applications and uses. The most commonly used remote controlled device is the remote control used to operate a television set. When using remote control, the entire operations involved in car driving, is executed through commands conveyed through remote controlled devices. Even though, at present human beings direct these remote controlled devices, in the future they will be directed through computer controlled artificial systems. A typical remote control device will communicate with the various controls in a car through encoded radio frequency (RF) signals. These signals communicate with a processing unit disposed within the vehicle to command the execution of different functions within the vehicle.
Since the first remote controlled car prototypes were introduced in the late 1970s, technologies used in remote controlled cars have been continuously upgraded and the first commercial roll out of the driverless car is expected in the early 2020s. The research labs working round the clock, funded by almost all the major auto manufacturers will certainly overcome the technological challenges, which seem too Herculean to surmount at present. With the increasing use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) in automobiles, technological innovation has already ushered in the era of remote controlled car navigation.
The methodologyThe cost of remote control devices has dropped dramatically in the past few years because of the availability of advanced computing devices and the performance has improved due to the availability of improved softwares to drive those devices. The software systems driving the computers can drive the vehicles over rough terrain, and even avoid obstacles at low speeds of up to 6 miles per hour and even at higher speeds of more than 70 miles per hour. This has become possible with the use of steering wheel and drive shaft encoders and also by the use of expensive inertial navigation systems for position estimation. Delco electronics introduced electronic components for on-road navigation experiments including autonomous lane keeping, lateral roadway departure warning and support and even curve warning.
Portable Advanced Navigation System (PANS)
The PANS platform has been designed to run task-specific systems and also to provide a computing base and Input/Output modalities for system developers as well as low level services like position estimation, steering wheel control and safety monitoring. At higher vehicle speeds, which required high level processing, precision position estimation and vehicle control, a portable workstation equipped with a color video digitiser is used. Also micro controllers are used as additional processors to implement low level steering motor control and vehicle safety monitoring functions.
Recently two sensors i.e., a differential equipped GPS and a fiber optic rate gyro have been used for position estimation. Also a steering wheel position encoder was used for better steering wheel traction. Application programs use interprocess communication mechanisms to access information about local (X, Y heading) positions, global (latitude and longitude) positions, vehicle velocity, distance travelled and turn radius so that vehicle movement will become smoother. The X, Y positions are calculated using the velocity and heading information from the GPS along with turn rate information from the gyroscope or steering encoder. But newer X.Y positions are computed by projecting the gyroscope along the current vehicle turn radius. This projection normally begins at the old vehicle position i.e., the X, Y heading, continues along the turn radius to some distance as determined by the current vehicle velocity and the time taken since the last update. This method is useful for stop-and-go city driving and also for high speed highway driving.
Diversity of modelsEven though remote control cars are still limited to hobbyists and research labs, the various models developed so far and patented, are unique and use different technologies and fuels. The electric powered remote controlled car is lighter, quieter and easier to operate. Recently remote controlled cars powered by nitro-methane and even gases have also been developed. Advanced features introduced include aircraft grade aluminium alloys to reduce the body weight, oil-filled shock absorbers, and suspension control arms made from high impact nylon.
Other articles
