Using a CAN bus for control of an All-terrain Vehicle

When designing an autonomous All-terrain Vehicle (ATV) one must ensure that the communications paths to all major subsystems use a robust electrical signaling protocol. One such protocol is the CAN bus. This paper describes an effort to utilize a CAN bus to connect existing and new hardware on an ATV. The work involved a redesign of the braking control system as well as the throttle controls. The redesign was necessary to replace obsolete or broken components, reduce the amount of extra wiring on board the ATV, and create a robust infrastructure for future expansion. A CAN bus control node was installed for each major component on the ATV as well as a master control node. The master control node now reads in signals from a remote control receiver and interprets them into commands for the other nodes on the CAN bus. Each node takes the commands received from the CAN bus and drives their respective components. A control node was developed to control the throttle and braking system. A second node was developed to control the steering control system. New control systems were developed for driving the brakes and the steering. The ATV can now be driven using a RC controller to operate the brakes, steering, and throttle, and is poised to accept new hardware to make it truly autonomous.