Caterpillar Inc.

Prithvi N Rao

Craig L Koehrsen

Lonnie J Devier

William L Whittaker

Carl A Kemner

Karl W Kleimenhagen

Joel L Peterson

Walter J Bradbury

Larry E Schmidt

Sanjiv J Singh

Dong Hun Shin

Adam J Gudat

Christos T Kyrtsos

Darrell E Stafford

Dana A Christensen

Norman K Lay

Louis J Weinbeck

Richard G Clow

Jay H West

Gary K Shaffer

Wenfan Shi

James W Sennott

Baoxin Wu

A system (400) for positioning and navigating an autonomous vehicle (310) allows the vehicle (310) to travel between locations. Position information (432) is derived from global positioning system satellites (200, 202, 204, and 206) or other sources (624) when the satellites (200, 202, 204, and 206) are not in the view of the vehicle (310). Navigation of the vehicle (310) is obtained using the position information (432), route information (414), obstacle detection and avoidance data (416), and on board vehicle data (908 and 910).

System and a method for enabling a vehicle to track a preset path

A system and method for enabling an autonomous vehicle to track a desired path plans a continuous path to return to the desired path when the vehicle deviates from the desired path. The continuous path is determined based on the vehicle's position, the desired path, and a lookahead distance. The lookahead distance is the distance on the desired path within which the continuous path and the desired path converge. The lookahead distance may vary as a function of vehicle speed. In one embodiment of the present invention, the continuous path is determined as a quintic polynomial.

System and method for enabling an autonomous vehicle to track a desired

An apparatus and method for navigating a vehicle along a predetermined route use route data and path data to define the predetermined route. The route data represents one or more contiguous path segments between adjacent nodes along the predetermined route. The path data includes postures of the vehicle along each of the path segments. The postures define the desired position, heading, curvature and speed of vehicle at various locations along the path segments. The apparatus and method use the posture information to generate and track a path thereby allowing the vehicle to navigate along the predetermined route.

Apparatus and method for autonomous vehicle navigation using path data

Integrated vehicle positioning and navigation system, apparatus and

Multi-tasked navigation system and method for an autonomous land based

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Pittsburgh, PA, United States of America

Prithvi N Rao