Design of an autonomous electric single-seat vehicle based on environment recognition algorithms

Today's autonomous vehicles are equipped with a variety of sensors, control techniques and actuators depending on the objectives and requirements of the addressing issue. In research, some even employ commercial cars to house their devices. The high cost of all these components represents a limitation in the development of an autonomous vehicle system. Therefore, researchers have no option but to rely on experimentation under simulated environments or to use small vehicles that in many cases do not accurately represent a real parametric dynamic system. This article describes the design of an autonomous electric vehicle prototype, which includes control systems, microcontrollers, encoders, motor controllers, LIDAR, and cameras, with the aim of having a reference in the literature that is low-cost and whose program code is employable in a real-life context. The present vehicle, whose structure is based on a conventional tubular go-kart, has been provided with the capability of moving autonomously by using computer vision and artificial intelligence algorithms. This document records the first steps of the design taking into account parameters of a real-life environment and the flexibility of A.I. algorithms.