This paper describes the development process and the initial field test results of an automated snowblower, focusing on one of the more difficult snow removal operations: blowing snow off the freeway alongside a guardrail without the snowblower touching the guardrail. The development process includes transforming this highway winter maintenance operation into a control problem, modeling a snowblower, designing control algorithms, devising a human-machine interface, and equipping a 20-ton snowblower with sensors and an actuator. Specific challenges include modeling the low-speed tire-induced oscillation, designing high-gain automatic control on front wheels while keeping rear steering under driver control, and implementing such a system under practical limitations. A new dynamic deflection tire model is incorporated into a bicycle model to account for the additional lateral dynamics. A low-order controller was first generated based on the understanding of the specific control problem and, then, refined and tuned iteratively using linear-matrix-inequality optimization. The initial winter field tests were successfully conducted with embedded magnetic markers along the guardrails installed on the shoulders of Interstate-80 in the Sierra Mountain region close to Donner Summit, CA, during the winter of 2005.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    A Real-World Application of Lane-Guidance Technologies—Automated Snowblower


    Contributors:
    Han-Shue Tan, (author) / Fanping Bu, (author) / Bougler, B. (author)


    Publication date :

    2007-09-01


    Size :

    1154979 byte




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




    SNOWBLOWER WHEEL ATTACHMENT

    FEHNTRICH RONALD | European Patent Office | 2020

    Free access

    Snowblower injuries in Vermont, 1981–1984

    Brondum, Jack / Spitalny, Kenneth / Waller, Julian A. et al. | Elsevier | 1981



    Automated lane guidance of commercial vehicles

    Tomizuka, M. / Tai, M. / Wang, J.Y. et al. | Tema Archive | 1999