Design and implementation of a magnetic rotary wheel encoder for a self-driving robotic vehicle

This thesis project aims to help complete the fabrication of a magnetic wheel encoder for a fleet of autonomous electric vehicles that will provide shuttle service across MIT's campus. Currently no self-driving vehicles exist for such a function, especially for mobility on a college campus. In an effort to assist the system's simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithm, this magnetic wheel encoder was designed and implemented to more accurately and directly determine the vehicle's trajectory. After mounting the magnets and sensors, an algorithm was developed to map the vehicle's path given raw magnetic field data. Though the open-loop system was not a perfect map to the actual path taken, this work provides a guideline with more than enough accuracy for the SLAM algorithm.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Gilbert, Alexander Prodromos

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jonathan How.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/98964

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/98964