Transitioning unmanned ground vehicle research technologies

Abstract

The Technology Transfer project employs a spiral development process to enhance the functionality and autonomy of mobile systems in the Joint Robotics Program (JRP) Robotic Systems Pool (RSP). The approach is to harvest prior and on-going developments that address the technology needs identified by emergent in-theatre requirements and users of the RSP. The component technologies are evaluated on a transition platform to identify the best features of the different approaches, which are then integrated and optimized to work in harmony in a complete solution. The result is an enabling mechanism that continuously capitalizes on state-of-the-art results from the research environment to create a standardized solution that can be easily transitioned to ongoing development programs. This paper focuses on particular research areas, specifically collision avoidance, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), and target-following, and describes the results of their combined integration and optimization over the past 12 months.