A Simulation Test Bed for Coordination of Unmanned Rotorcraft and Ground Vehicles

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a simulation test bed for a command, control, computer, communication, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C 4 ISR) system. The test bed features coordination of a rotorcraft unmanned aerial vehicle (RUAV) and multiple unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) by integrating a high-fidelity rotorcraft model with actual ground-based robots that emulate UGVs. The RUAV component of the test bed is realized on a networked computer simulation, whereas networked robotics hardware is employed for the UGV representation. The RUAV dynamics run a high-fidelity nonlinear simulation model of a UH-60A Black Hawk helicopter. To emulate the dynamics of the UGVs, several networked Segway robots are employed. The proposed C 4 ISR system undertakes the task of mission management from the top level discrete-event supervision (DES) to the bottom level continuous-time regulation.