A Component-Based Framework for Fast, Low-Cost System Design, Integration, and Life-Cycle Maintenance of Automated Resupply Vehicles

Progress in the area of intelligent automation is impeded by the lack of standardized architectures that promote software reuse. Conventional design methodologies produce tailored software solutions that are costly to implement, difficult to modify, andexpensive to maintain. With component reuse, however, designers can realize greater economies of scale and shorter development cycles.Phase I offered an initial reference architecture design that supports modular, component-based designs. The offerer demonstrated concept feasibility by implementing a core vision system module. The work proposed herein advances the initial findings andbroadens the scope of the investigation. The main research items include: the continuing design of the reference architecture; the creation of processes and metrics to support the practice of component-based programming; and the development of integratedtools to facilitate component design, implementation, and system integration. The effort will culminate in a technology demonstration on two materiel handling testbeds. An accounting and evaluation task will proceed in parallel to quantify cost-savingsachieved through component-based design and software reuse.The proposed solution will provide a component-based approach for software design and implementation for a wide variety of automated materiel handling systems. This will enable the Army to lowerdevelopment time and cost of these machines while leveraging previous work.Our involvement in the various standards committees (JTA, JUAGS) will provide the avenue through which we can distribute and promote the developed component-based reference design architecture. These components will be a compelling toolbox for programmingmateriel-handling systems and can provide equal benefit to the commercial sector by providing a software development standard for unmanned system automation.The reference architecture will provide the software framework that gives the various research labs, system integrators, and contractors the ability to develop, share and reuse these software components. Further integration of 3rd party software designtools such as UML and DOORS will lead to the ControlShell application framework being an attractive development tool for developers of automated unmanned systems.