Motion Planning for Omni-Directional Vehicles

Small, lightweight and affordable UGVs are crucial to military physical security and homeland defense. The program will develop, demonstrate, test and deliver the Phase I JAUS compliant planning system for agile cluttered environment traversal on 2 low cost prototype UGVs. The first prototype will be based on the Omni-Directional Inspection Vehicle (ODIS) and will emphasize low-cost and ruggedness in moderately structured environments with low vertical clearance, high usability and moderate agility for automotive under-body inspection at checkpoints and in parking areas. The second prototype will be based on the Walking Articulated Tracked Vehicle, or WATV, and will emphasize high mobility in unstructured and destructed environments. The planning system designed and implemented in Phase I will be expanded to include the behaviors necessary to meet the mobility requirements of the two prototype UGVs. The planning system will be tested and evaluated using the prototype UGVs at the TARDEC Robotics Laboratory at TACOM in Warren MI.