Ongoing research using HERMIES: The Hostile Environment Robotic Machine Intelligence Experiment Series

Abstract

In order to test and validate the hardware and software developed in the research activities of CESAR (Center of Engineering Systems Advanced Research) a series of mobile autonomous robotic vehicles are being assembled named HERMIES (Hostile Environment Robotic Machine Intelligence Experiment Series). The current experimental test bed HERMIES-IIB, is the third in the series. A description of the earlier HERMIES robots and research activities may be found in the literature. HERMIES-IIB has been operational for more than a year and is described in detail in this article and elsewhere. In addition to a description of the robot, this article details some of the experiments under way utilizing HERMIES-IIB. The fourth robot in the series, HERMIES-III, is currently being assembled and should be available for experiments during the fall of 1988. This robot and initial experiments planned for it are also briefly described in this paper. 26 refs., 7 figs.