As the vehicle's autonomy level increases, new security systems are added to its functionality so accidents can be avoided. Those security systems can only be reliable and work effectively if an accurate estimation of the vehicle's velocity is available.
Given the importance of the estimation of velocity in vehicles, in this thesis, we used the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and the Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) to improve the velocity estimation of a heavy-duty dumper vehicle. Those methods were used to fuse the wheels' speed information and the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) readings available from the vehicle. A simulation model of the vehicle was created using Simulink which outputted the ground truth velocities that were used as a reference for comparison with the estimators when the vehicle went through different path patterns that included combinations of going straight, steering, and experiencing excessive wheel slip. Moreover, the sensors were simulated in Simulink as well and they provided the data that was used by the MATLAB scripts that coded the EKF and the UKF. The performance of the estimators was compared with the ground truth velocities by calculating the Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) in each case. The results from the experiments showed that both the EKF and the UKF performed the same for the used simulation model, however, both improved the velocity estimation by decreasing the RMSE values from 0.46 (estimation using only IMU information) and 0.226 (estimation based only on wheels information) to 0.20. This is evidence that the Kalman Filter variations are a good option to test when the task is estimating the velocity of a vehicle.