Goodyear

Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company is a leading manufacturer of tires, producing and selling tires under five different brand names. The quality of these tires is of paramount importance, and Goodyear has an extensive proving grounds for testing their products.

Tire testing is time-consuming and often tedious work. Professional drivers are required to put the tires through the high-speed tests required. But for testing of Goodyear's tractor tires, the driving required is not high-speed, and it is definitely tedious. So Goodyear called on Autonomous Solutions to automate a John Deere tractor to do all the testing unmanned and with little human oversight.

ASI's beginnnings were in agriculture, so it was uniquely qualified for the task.

Goodyear wanted a system that could repeat a course many times over with no variation in speed, and required little or no human intervention. The original system developed was a wheeled tractor and used Mobius 2 on the control unit. (The current version is Mobius 3.) The unmanned tractor was capable of operating safely at speeds up to 25 mph, and included radar obstacle detection to stop the tractor if an unexpected obstacle was near it.

In 2004, Goodyear asked for a tracked John Deere 8400T as well. When that system was delivered, the original system was upgraded to Mobius 3. Both tractors have been operating autonomously since 2005.

Mobius allows the operators of the tractors to remain in a comfortable building while Mobius tracks the position of each vehicle. The radar units on each tractor are shown in the display, so the operator will know where objects are detected. The radar are completely configurable from the control station. Operators can set what action the vehicle will take when objects are detected on each radar.

For testing that requires the tractor to be pulling an implement, Mobius lets the operator set the size of the implement, and uses that information to plan paths that won't drag it into fence posts or power poles.

Army Corps of Engineers RAVEN

The special problem that the corps of engineers needed a solution to was soil density testing. The Corps is capable of constructing airstrips for large aircraft in a short time, but before an airstrip can be constructed, the suitability of a site needs to be determined. The density of the ground is important when the weight of a C130 is going to be passing or parking over it.

The Rapid Assessment Vehicle Engineer (RAVEN) was designed to autonomously gather test data using an automated Dynamic Cone Penetrometer (DCP), and to map the terrain using a scanning 3D laser designed by Autonomous Solutions. The data collected is then used by the Corps of Engineers in designing and building the airstrip.

Special control panels were designed in Mobius for use with the DCP and 3D laser. As the DCP conducts a test, Mobius graphs the data in real-time, and also stores the information on disc for later use. As an action option, DCP tests can be performed automatically at any point along a vehicle's path.

The 3D laser actually builds a 3D point model of the land in front of the vehicle. Mobius can then analyze the data and create a detailed map of all gaps in the lay of the land that would need to be filled in for an airstrip. This enables the engineers to find the flattest location and orientation for a runway. Laser data gathering can also be planned as an action on a path.

The RAVEN has been used in demonstrations and exercises.

Chaos

Chaos is a unique vehicle. With four independantly driven and articulated tracks, it presents unique challenges for an operator controlling it.

Mobius, however, is always up to the challenge. For Chaos, a special run-screen was developed that incorporates all the necessary features into a compact interface. It includes a video window, a vehicle model showing the positions of all the tracks and the orientation of the vehicle, and buttons for controlling operating modes.

Meant to run on the Mobi handheld OCU, the Chaos version of Mobius translates input from the buttons and joysticks on the OCU into commands for Chaos. Controls for which there is no physical button are controlled with the touch screen on the OCU.

The vehicle model is essential for good control when the operator can't see the robot. It also shows the current operational mode of the arms.