Theodore The PiCar

A Multi-sensor Fusion, Estimation and Control for Autonomous PI Car Navigation

Abstract

Our capstone project aims to design and implement an autonomous driving and navigation system for a Traxxas Rustler XL-5 race truck. This Raspberry Pi operated car or “Picar” is a simple vehicle platform based on a RC model car. Our autonomous system utilizes various onboard sensors such as IMU, GPS, and encoders to provide measurements of the vehicle output, while control algorithms such as our model-based controller and estimator, implemented as ROS2 nodes, produce the most reliable performance in implementation. In addition to creating a control system for our project, we extend beyond our knowledge from previous courses and explore sensor fusion algorithms and the kalman filter.


Obsidian site

Please check our current Obsidian site for full documentation of our work with an interactive graph.


Group members

Payton Irwin: B.S. in Electrical Engineering, irwin.payton@wustl.edu

Onja Rabenarivo: B.S. in Systems Engineering, o.k.rabenarivo@owustl.edu

Will Wu: B.S in Electrical Engineering, willwu@wustl.edu


Advisors

Dr. Dorothy Wang – Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering