Refurbishment of Cars and Installation of Sensors for Testing Autonomous Driving

Gallardo, Cristian

Student Work

Refurbishment of Cars and Installation of Sensors for Testing Autonomous Driving

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Autonomous processes are becoming increasingly popular throughout our daily lives. The possibilities for autonomy are still being explored as there are many mediums in which it can be applied. To expose students to such capabilities, I repaired and outfitted eight cars with the necessary hardware to be capable of autonomous driving. These cars were to test the functionality of the Modular Package for Autonomous Driving (mPAD), a previous MQP project worked on during the WPI 2021-22 Academic Year. Multiple design requirements had to be met when engineering these cars, such as making sure they were robust and dependable. Along with testing how the autonomous driving platform performed, the sensors outfitted on the cars were put through extraneous tests. The cars were put through extensive testing to assure that they were functional and that they were mPAD compatible. Options to improve the functionality of mPAD were explored, such as observing the results of a user feedback survey and implementing a circuit to help regulate the motor speed accurately. For comparison, the performance of mPAD is compared with other open source autonomous driving platforms that have been proven to be effective. Through this, suggestions for further mPAD improvements were made and cars were completed using the project’s design requirements. These cars are ready to be used by students in ME or RBE classes to explore how autonomy works and its capabilities.

This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

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