Autonomous land vehicles

Abstract

This paper describes the current state-of-the-art in autonomous land vehicle (ALV) systems and technology. Application of ALV systems span relatively structured domains in mining, cargo handling, and agriculture, through potential application in very unstructured tasks such as bush fire fighting, forestry, and defence. In this paper, four key functional ALV technology areas are identified and discussed. These are mobility, localization, navigation, and planning. The essential conclusion of this paper is that the necessary sensors, algorithms, and methods already exist to develop, demonstrate, and commercialize ALVs in many applications.