Our final project implements a fully autonomous tow truck capable of locating, approaching, and retrieving a disabled chassis without any human intervention. At its core, the system is built as a ROS 2 package named autonomous_tow_car, with three coordinated nodes handling perception, maneuvering, and actuation.
| Name | Department |
|---|---|
| Nicole Li | ECE |
| Shaurya Agarwal | ECE |
| Jared Admiraal | MAE |
| George Nakoud | MAE |
- A forward‐facing camera continuously streams images into the Detect Damsel node.
- Inside this node, we run a lightweight computer‐vision model that scans each frame for the disabled chassis (“damsel”).
- Once a chassis is recognized, the node publishes its relative position and orientation in the car’s coordinate frame.
- The Detect Damsel node’s output triggers the Three-Point Turn node. As soon as the chassis falls within a predetermined detection range, we execute the three point turn.
- Steer Hard to Reverse: The car reverses with full‐lock steering (e.g., rear‐wheel drive at a set velocity) until the “damsel” is centered behind the rear bumper.
- Steer Hard to Forward: It then drives forward with opposite lock to swing the front end around, aligning the car’s front wheels toward the target chassis.
- Straighten Out & Approach: Finally, it straightens the wheels and moves forward slowly to position its front center precisely in front of the chassis, maintaining a fixed stopping distance (e.g., 0.2 m) so the towing hook can engage.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KutY3HxdIYGCIqWJ8cxIVXh8-trw-SjU/view?resourcekey
- Once the car is aligned and stopped at the ideal grabbing distance, the Hook and Vanish node takes over.
- This node commands a mini‐servo motor which lowers the hook until it contacts a designated “hook point” on the chassis, we have magnets on the hook and disabled chassis to help it attach if there are small deviations.
- Once the hook is lowered to the right position, we command the servo to retract, lifting the chassis’s eyelet snugly against the car’s frame.
- With the chassis now firmly latched, the car starts driving away.
- Once the chassis is securely hooked, the robocar switches into GPS‐navigation mode
- It retrieves the predefined latitude and longitude of the towing station, plans a route, and then drives—towing the disabled chassis along that route until it arrives at the exact coordinates
- Upon reaching the station’s GPS point, the robocar stops, lowers the hook to release the chassis, and confirms that the car has been delivered to the correct location.
Special thanks to Professor Jack Silberman and the Teaching Assistants Alexander, Winston, and Jingli
We are grateful for the comprehensive curriculum and resources provided by the UCSD MAE/ECE 148 program.
