AUTOPÍA Program for Intelligent Control of Vehicles - Fuzzy Modeling and Control: Theory and Applications - page 197

The AUTOPÍA program began in the Instituto de Automática Industrial (IAI)
belonging to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) in 1998,
since then AUTOPÍA has been alive; now it continues been developed in the Centro
de Automática y Robótica (CAR) a mixed institution depending of the CSIC and
of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM). When the aim of the AUTOPÍA
program was decided and the control techniques were also decided, others initial
decisions were to put all the intelligence in the vehicle, namely the control system;
in this way the environment could remain unchanged and to use global system based
on satellite (GNSS) to locate the vehicles (Naranjo 2005 ). Summing up, the aim of
the AUTOPÍA program is to augment serial vehicles with control intelligent systems
to run autonomous and safely into the conventional traffic, even in urban areas and
risky situations. The main sensors and techniques used in AUTOPÍA program are
respectively, navigation systems based on satellite GNSS (in particular differential
GPS 1 awaiting for the Galileo availability (Naranjo 2000 ) and agents architectures,
fuzzy controllers (García et al. 1997 ) (which we known adapted for mobile robot con-
trol and for industrial processes automation) and evolutionary and swarm algorithms.
Until to have the first vehicles available, we implemented fuzzy controls based on
the ORBEX (/it ORdenador Borroso Experimental) co-processor, a computational
model to execute systems based on fuzzy rules. Some results attained in this step
were the first versions of tracking of trajectories, platooning and guiding in urban
areas (García and de Pedro 1998 , 2000 ). A test circuit named ZOCO ( ZOna de COn-
ducción ) was built in 1998. The circuit imitates an urban district, it has a total length
of 1Km and the paths have 6m of width in order to allow double circulation. The
initial construction, left picture of the Fig. 11.1 , contained an intersection that after
was completed with a roundabout. In 2010 a control booth, a tower to put cameras,
antennas, etc. and a net of traffic lights have been installed.
As for the vehicles, AUTOPÍA has had at one's disposal five vehicles, all ones
except for Platero, have names of famous Spanish horses. The first ones two Citroën
Berlingo electric vans, Babieca and Rocinante, afterward arrived two Citroën C3,
Clavileño and Platero and, finally Molinero, a small minibus completed the fleet.
While Babieca was been instrumented new trajectories by ZOCO were simulated.
At the end of 1999 the longitudinal control was implemented; an ADC-DAC board
was employed to count the tachometer throbs and to provide a signal between 1 and
4 volts determining the velocity of reference to act over the accelerator. in order to
implement later the lateral control a motor of 90 w. was engaged to the steering bar
of the vehicle. The boards of motor control and power were connected to the PC of
the vehicle through an ISA Bus of 16 Mbit/s.
In this step AUTOPÍA team acquired expertise in systems as for fuzzy control as
for navigation based on satellite. Then the first strategies were defined, implemented,
tuned and tested in the vehicles. A complementary work of developing control sys-
tems was combining the information provided by a vision camera and the GPS, so a
1 The choice of GPS lead quickly to develop a wireless network to communicate the GPS base with
the GPS receptors on the Vehicles. Afterward these WiFi network would work to communicate
vehicles among them and with the infrastructure.