Conversion of a Conventional Electric Automobile

Into an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV)

Volkan Sezer #1, Çağrı Dikilitaş #2, Ziya Ercan #1, Hasan Heceoğlu #1, Alper Öner #2, Ahmet Apak #2
Metin Gökaşan#1, Ata Muğan #2
#1
Control Engineering Department, Faculty of Electronics Engineering, Istanbul Technical
University, Istanbul, Turkey
#2
Mechatronics Engineering Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Istanbul Technical
University, Istanbul, Turkey

sezervolkan@gmail.com
dikilitascagri@itu.edu.tr

Abstract— In this study, conversion procedure of a conventional
electric automobile into an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) is
illustrated. This conversion process is divided into two main
parts as, mechanical and electrical modifications. Interface
circuit, interface software, additional power system, selection of
the sensors and computer hardware are given in electrical
modifications part. Similarly, design of braking and steering
system, their computer simulations and strength analysis are
given in mechanical modifications part. All these applications are
illustrated on a conventional electric vehicle during this study.
Keywords—Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV), Modification,
Sensor, Communication, Interface.
• Its minimal dimensions will help us about our future
algorithm tests on road.
• An internal combustion engine causes vibration to
the system because of its working principle. These
vibrations may cause extra noise to sensors such as;
inertial measurement unit (IMU), laser scanners and
etc. Filtering this noise will cause loss of original
sensor data. But in a pure electric vehicle vibrations
will be lower than combustion engine based vehicle.
• Since our vehicle does not have a transmission, we
do not need to design an additional mechanical
system for gear shift.

I. INTRODUCTION
Unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) have been very popular
in recent years. Some of the previous practical studies can be
seen in [1-3]. Since these vehicles do not have permission to
be in traffic, series production of such a vehicle is not possible
for now. That’s why most of the studies in UGV begin with a
conversion of a conventional one into autonomous.
Vehicle shown in figure 1 is the base vehicle for our
conversion in this study.
Even though our first aim is to convert the base vehicle into
an UGV, we consider some additional features. First of all,
human drivability feature is protected. Additional information
about this will be given in Mechanical Modifications part.
Another feature is drivability by a joystick from outside of the
vehicle. So, the vehicle has 3 drive modes:
• Classic Mode: Drive by human in vehicle.
• Remote Control Mode: Drive by human outside the
vehicle.
• Autonomous Mode: Drive autonomously to a given
desired location.

General communication scheme of the vehicle is illustrated in

figure 2.

Fig.1 Base Vehicle

Base vehicle is a pure electric two-seater vehicle with

6.5kW electric motor and 72V/140Ah battery pack. More
information about the vehicle can be found in [4]. The reasons
for choosing it as a base vehicle are illustrated below:
Fig. 2 Communication Scheme
 Bluetooth protocol is used between PC and joystick. PC
sends/receives data to RS232 protocol via radio frequency
(RF). There are 2 RF transceivers in system, one is on PC side, illustrated.
and the other is in vehicle. Computers and sensors
communicate via CAN and RS232 protocol. Only the 2 main A. Communication and Interface Software
computers are shown in figure 2. RF transceiver electric
circuit is illustrated in figure 3.
Fig.3 RF Transceiver
II. MINIMUM DESIGN REQUIREMENTS OF AN AUTONOMOUS
VEHICLE
There is a minimal set of hardware components that reside
on almost all UGV. When designing an UGV test bed, it is
important to consider attributes such as cost, size, and weight
while ensuring modularity. For example, a designer might feel
that integrating GPS onto the processing board would reduce
size and weight. This integration, although initially beneficial,
stifles upgrades to the GPS and will be useless on test beds
operating exclusively in GPS denied areas. The most obvious
necessary components of an UGV test bed are:
Processing System:
The processing system is the central point of device
interfacing and is responsible for high level data processing
and decision making. This hardware could simply gather and
pass data to human operator or act as the brain of a fully
autonomous vehicle.
Actuator Controller:
The actuator controller is responsible for directly or
indirectly controlling the platform or component movements.
Sensors:
Sensors are responsible for measuring some attributes of
the world such as position, heading and distance etc.
Examples of sensors that provide this type of data include
GPS, IMU, range finders and encoders.
Communication:
Ultimately an UGV will need to communicate with an
external device. This may be as simple as sending progress
data to a human or as complex as interfacing with a group of
UGVs. Typical devices include wireless serial Modems,
Ethernet and 802.11.
III. ELECTRICAL MODIFICATIONS
In this part, electrical modifications for an UGV design are
Our vehicle has an interface software which sends and
receives data from vehicle via serial port of the PC, using an
RF transceiver module. This program is written using C++ in
Visual Studio platform. A screenshot of this interface is
illustrated in figure 4.
Fig.4 Screenshot of Interface Software (PC Side)
This interface manages the communication protocol and
makes the necessary settings for serial port. It also sends the
operation modes of the vehicle which are:
• Driver Mode
• Remote Control Mode
• Autonomous Mode
Interface sends the joystick data in “remote control mode”.
The connected joystick is a standard game console from
Logitech, which can be seen in figure 2. Without a joystick,
acceleration and steering angle commands can be sent
manually.
In autonomous mode, GPS coordinates of the desired
location are sent to vehicle.
An emergency button also sends emergency signal to the
vehicle, which is interpreted as brake and stop on the vehicle
side.
Additionally, the interface takes the GPS position data from
the vehicle.
On vehicle side data from the sensors is gathered and
processed by running algorithms on PXI processor. Then
processed data is sent to Microautobox (MABX) via CAN
protocol. MABX is used for driving the actuators. The
screenshot of the interface which is designed for MABX is
illustrated in figure 5.
 SONY-XCI- It is a smart Image Processing
SX100 camera, which
can process
images with its
own processor
and sends
processed data
via UDP/IP.

C. Additional Power System

Because of additional sensors, actuators and computers on
Fig.5 Screenshot of Interface Software (Vehicle Side) board an extra isolated power supply is needed. When
calculating the additional power requirement the worst case
B. Sensors and Controllers
(all the sensors, computers and actuators are using maximum
In an UGV, there should be some sensors for localization power at the same time) is considered. For this aim 4 piece of
and mapping. More information about sensors that are used in 12V/50Ah lead-acid batteries are used by connecting them
intelligent vehicles can be found in [5]. The sensors that we serial and parallel.12V and 24V is enough for all the
have installed on the vehicle are listed below: additional components. Appropriate fuses and connectors are
also designed for each new electrical component as a power
Sensor Quantity Brand/Model module. Figure 6 shows the new battery pack and power
Type module.
Laser 2 IBEO-LUX
Scanner
Laser 1 SICK LDR-
Scanner LRS-3100
Laser 2 SICK-LMS151-
Scanner 10100
Camera 1 SONY-XCI-
SX100
Ultrasonic 10 Banner-
sensor QT50ULB Fig.6 Additional Batteries and Power System
GPS 1 Trimble
SPS851&SPS5 D. Vehicle Interface Hardware
51H
The most important property of an autonomous vehicle is
Digital 1 KVH
Compass Azimuth1000 its drive-by-wire capability. For this aim, an electric circuit is
IMU 1 Crossbow designed and produced. Schematic and PCB layout of the
VG700AB-201 circuit is illustrated in figure 7.

These sensor data should be processed for localization and

mapping. According to these processed data, trajectory
planning and tracking operations should be done. All these
tasks need huge amount of processing power. That's why the
tasks are distributed between 3 main computers on board.
These computers and their duties are given in the table below:

Computer Description Duty

NI PXI- It has 2.26Ghz Localization,
8110RT quad-core mapping and path
processor processor and a planning
PXI-7954R powerful
FPGA module FPGA module
on PXI1000B with several
chassis I/O cards.
Dspace It has 800Mhz Path tracking, low
Microautobox processor and level control
Fig.7 Vehicle Interface Circuit Schematic and PCB
1401/1501/15 several I/O (throttle, steering,
07 interfaces. brake), wireless The aim of this circuit is to switch the acceleration signal to
communication electric motor and brake lamp signals between pedals and low
level controller (MABX). According to the position of the
mode selection switch which determines the mode of the
vehicle (autonomous or classic mode), desired electric signals
are given via the pedals or MABX. Installed components are
illustrated in figure 8.
Fig. 8 Vehicle Interface Hardware
IV. MECHANICAL MODIFICATIONS
In order to convert a conventional electric car shown in
figure 9, into an autonomous one which can be seen in figure
10, some mechanical modifications must be done as well as
electrical modifications.
Fig. 9 An Interior View of the Base Vehicle
Fig. 10 Interior View of the Base Vehicle after Modifications
At first, mechanical limits of the stock car should be
understood well to get design limits. This can be done by a set
of tests which are taken on-track and off-the track.
A. On-Track Tests
This part contains a few tests to get to know about vehicle’s
dynamical behavior. Aim of these tests, are getting the basic
information of the vehicle, such as maximum velocity,
acceleration and deceleration capacity, minimum turn radius
as illustrated in Figure 11, characteristic velocity and
dynamical response of vehicle while turning which is shown
in Figure 12, lateral and longitudinal forces as shown in
Figure 13 and Figure 14.
Final aim of those tests is to estimate dynamical and
kinematic model of the base vehicle. Some of those
parameters are measured as below;
• Minimum turning radius: 3 meters.
• Braking distance from initial speed at 30 km/h: 13m.
etc.
Fig. 11 Geometry of a Turning Vehicle [6]
Fig. 12 Olley’s definition for understeer and oversteer [6]
Fig 13 Cornering model with tractive forces [6]
 Fig. 17 GPS Antenna and Digital Compass

Fig. 14 SAE Vehicle Axis System [7] D. Braking Mechanism Design

An autonomous car should be able to do what human-
beings act while driving. These actions have to be taken by
Once we have this information, we need some other data
electro-mechanical systems. The system below is designed to
like required torque in order to turn steering wheel and force
actuate brake pedal of the vehicle. Our design had to be
requirement to actuate brake pedal. That’s why some off-the
detachable so it could easily be converted into a conventional
track tests have been done.
car when it is in manual mode. Final design is as seen below
B. Off - the Track Tests in Figure 18 and Figure 19.
Torque, required to turn steering wheel is gathered by
reverse engineering techniques. That data is gathered by using
a torque meter.
Dynamometer is used to measure the necessary force
amount to be able to push the brake pedal.
C. Using Computer Environment in Mechanical Design
Process
Basic measurements, consisting of simple dimensions of
the vehicle help to build a CAD model of the vehicle. Once
we have these dimensions accurately and translate those data
Fig. 18 Brake System Design Overview
to CAD environment, any modification to be made can be
designed, simulated and get prepared for easy production,
using CAD and CAE software.

Fig.19 A View of Brake System After Modification

This design contains a servo motor which is used to control

Fig. 15: Basic CAD Data of the Base Vehicle
Each component’s CAD data are gathered precisely to keep
the new designs accurate as illustrated below in figure 15,
figure 16 and figure 17.
Fig. 16 Ultrasonic Sensor and LIDAR
the brake pedal by a linear guide. Mechanical movement is
transferred by a set of gears.
E. Steering Mechanism Design
A servo motor without a gearbox is used to actuate steering
wheel. The reason for using that kind of servo motor is that,
again manual mode of our autonomous car. Thus, it is possible
to operate steering wheel by hand as in a conventional vehicle.
Views of the steering system assembly, in CAD environment
and after modification are illustrated in figure 20 and 21
respectively.
 After various design try-outs, final design is obtained as in
the figure above.

Fig. 20 A View of the Steering System Assembly, in CAD Environment

Fig. 23 FEA of the Cotter

The same procedure is followed to analyze strength of other

critical elements taking part in the mechanical design as
shown in figure 23 and figure 24.

Fig. 21 A View From the Steering System After Modification

F. Mechanical Simulation and Strength Analysis of Designed

Mechanisms
CATIA’s DMU Kinematics module is used to simulate
dynamical behavior of designed mechanisms. In Figure 22,
finite element analysis (FEA) results of the sheet metal, which Fig. 24 FEA of Pinion Gear of Brake System
is used to mount steering motor is shown. All these strength analyzes of designed parts are done using
ABAQUS.

V. CONCLUSIONS
Conversion procedure of a conventional automobile into an
UGV is illustrated in this work. Conversion is studied in 2
main parts, as electrical and mechanical modifications. In
literature, it is not easy to find a paper which gives enough
information about autonomous vehicle conversion procedure.
This study tries to fill the gap in this area. Initial autonomous
applications that we have tested with the vehicle are
autonomous parallel parking and obstacle avoidance basically.
Global path planning considering non-holonomic constraints,
mapping, localization and robust path tracking subjects are
being studied using our autonomous vehicle for future
applications.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors would like to thank to State Planning Office (DPT)

for their support under the Grant Number 90143.
REFERENCES
[1] DARPA Urban Challenge Team MIT, Technical Report, 2007.
[2] Stanford’s Robotic Vehicle “Junior:”, Interim Report, 2007.
[3] Team Caltech, Sensing, Navigation and Reasoning Technologies for
the DARPA Urban Challenge, 2007.
[4] http://www.bestarmotor.com/product/ElectricCar-EC-E1.html
[5] Vlacic L., Parent M., Harashima F., “Intelligent Vehicle Technologies,
Theory and Applications”, Elsevier, 2001.
[6] Wong, J.Y., “Theory of Ground Vehicles”; John Wiley & Sons Inc.,
3rd Edition, 2001.
Fig. 22 Implementation of FEA for Each Designed Part
[7] Gillespie T.D., "Fundamentals of Vehicle Dynamics", SAE
International, 1992.