Stingray: Control of High Speed Unmanned Vehicles

iRobot Corporation and Chatten Associates propose to jointly develop the Stingray teleoperated control system for driving the iRobot Warrior UGV at high speeds. The Stingray Project will integrate Chatten’s HARV (Head-Aimed Remote Viewer) immersive telepresence system with proprioceptive behaviors on iRobot’s dynamically-reconfigurable Warrior UGV to provide unprecedented capabilities for driving small UGVs at high speed in complex environments. During Phase I, we will develop the initial design for the Stingray control system. We will implement and demonstrate immersive teleoperation with the HARV controlling the Warrior up to its maximum current travel speed. We will explore the use of variable fields-of-view and a panoramic 360-degree camera to provide additional operator awareness. We will also analyze the feasibility of using the Warrior’s dynamic track configuration and weight shifting to control oversteer and understeer. The final report will include documentation of the design tradeoffs, feasibility analysis, and predicted performance. For the Phase I Option, we will implement proprioceptive driver assist behaviors to dynamically adjust the handling characteristics of the Warrior, and we will add stereo audio to the teleoperation system. In Phase II, we will complete the design of the control system and build a fully-integrated Stingray Warrior UGV.