Obstacle avoidance in a solar powered autonomous vehicle

In this paper design and testing of a solar powered autonomous vehicle which navigates in the presence of obstacles is presented. Obstacle avoidance is the most crucial task of an autonomous system. Hence any autonomous vehicle should have the capability to perform sudden maneuvers when an obstacle is detected. The vehicle has a sensor which estimates the distance at which the obstacle is present and the obstacle's height and width. A microcontroller controls the entire system which consists of dual batteries, four wheels, sonar sensor whose movement is controlled by two servo motors and solar panels which are a source of power supply. One of the batteries is connected to the load and the other to the solar panel. Charging and discharging happens simultaneously unlike conventional designs where the power source is used to recharge a single battery. The sensor data collected by the controller is used to maneuver the vehicle. The vehicle developed can explore any alien environment and take decisions autonomously.