Specifications of a small electric vehicle: modular and distributed approach

In this paper we describe a small electric vehicle equipped with automatisms that allow autonomous motion. A eet of such vehicles could be one element of a novel urban transportation system to door-to-door displacement in closed area (city centers but also touristic resorts, campuses, ...) if they are used in self-service and car-sharing mode. The speciications in the matter of performances (range, max speed, ...) or energy storage agree with this application within this kind of evolution space (several short trips at low speed). A stylish look and an original electro-mechanical structure with four steering and driving wheels was adopted. By the fact of its utilization opened to diierent users not having necessarily driving-license, the vehicle must be friendly, easy to handle and secure not only for the driver but also for the pedestians walking in the same area (computer aided driving). The driver must be carefree of parking or batteries recharging. The recent progresses of Electronics and Robotics allow to envisage that these maneuvers could run automatically without human intervention. We have designed a modular and distributed hardware architecture with intelligent components (actuactors and sensors) linked together by a eld bus. Several solutions for the implementing of our software control architecture are examined .