Robust Guidance of a Conventionally Steered Vehicle using Destination Bearing

This paper presents an algorithm for camera-based navigation of a conventionally steered vehicle. The destination bearing, obtained by actively panning the camera to fixate on the destination, is the primary measurement. A steering sequence designed to direct a moving vehicle towards a visible destination is generated using an extension of predictive control techniques. A variable sampling interval, based on distance traveled instead of elapsed time, provides robustness to destination range errors. Additional robustness is achieved by incorporating non-linearities into the steering algorithm, ensuring that the moving vehicle originating from an awkward position and heading will not diverge from the destination. A two-stage extended Kalman filter, which uses the destination bearing angle and known vehicle motion, provides estimates of range. A criterion for shifting the attention of the camera between intermediate destinations is presentrd. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed steering algorithm.