A JAUS-Compliant Self-Contained Autonomous Control Unit for UGVs

We propose building an open architecture, JAUS-compliant, bolt-on controller for unmanned ground robots that provides autonomous operations in collaboration with the human operator. This will be delivered in two ways: First, as a “black box” that can be mounted on any JAUS-compliant platform and take control to provide autonomous capabilities. Second, as a suite of C++ packages with documented APIs that can be used in other DoD systems to incorporate capabilities from this project, all or in part. The Autonomous Control Unit’s capabilities will include: “Follow Me” where the robot follows the operator, “Follow That” follows a soldier or vehicle, “Go There” drives to a location marked on an image viewed from the robot’s navigation camera, and “Follow Path” follows a path sketched on a navigation camera image. The system will also recognize a set of standard military hand signals to visually engage and control the “Follow Me” behavior. The user interface is built on the open-source GTK+ graphics library, under Linux and Windows. It communicates with the ACU over standard TCP/IP, using an open, documented, communications protocol. This will allow easily porting the OCU to other systems, or replacing it with an existing user interface.