Advances in autonomy for small UGVs

Abstract

Many advances have been made in autonomy for unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) but most of these advances have been for large UGVs only, in that the sensors required for autonomy are typically large, heavy and require a significant amount of power. Because of the size, weight and power restrictions imposed by a man-portable UGV advances in autonomy have been very limited. The SPAWAR Systems Center San Diego (SSC San Diego) has previously developed a waypoint navigation capability for small robots. That system required an operator to monitor a live video feed from the vehicle to ensure it did not strike any obstacles in its path. Now SSC San Diego in cooperation with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has developed a miniature obstacle detection sensor suitable for small robots. SSC San Diego has also developed the obstacle-avoidance algorithms to navigate autonomously around obstacles.