ROBOTIC CONVOY CAPABILITY

RED-ZONE ROBOTICS WILL DEVELOP A ROBOTIC CONVOY CAPABILITY BASED ON TWO APPROACHES TO ROBOTIC VEHICLE NAVIGATION: TARGET TRACKING VIA PASSIVE VISION AND PATH TRACKING VIA GPS-AIDED INERTIAL GUIDANCE. TARGET TRACKING USES A CAMERA AND IMAGE PROCESSOR ON THE SLAVE VEHICLE TO FOLLOW A PATTERN AFFIXED TO THE LEADING VEHICLE, SERVOING THE SLAVE VEHICLE'S MOTIONS TO MAINTAIN A GIVEN DISTANCE AND ORIENTATION BETWEEN THE TWO VEHICLES. IN PATH TRACKING, THE TELEOPERATED LEAD VEHICLE BUILDS A CARTESIAN MAP OF ITS PATH; THIS PATH IS TRANSMITTED TO EACH OF THE SLAVE VEHICLES, WHICH FOLLOW THE PATH WHILE MAINTAINING SAFE FOLLOWING DISTANCE VIA A MEDIUM-RANGE PROXIMITY SENSOR. THE TWO APPROACHES DIFFER IN THE CONVOY TACTICS THEY SUPPORT AND THEIR TECHNICAL COMPLEXITY. RED-ZONE WILL EVALUATE THE TWO APPROACHES, SELECTING ONE BASED ON TACOM OBJECTIVES AND TECHNICAL ANALYSES. THE SELECTED APPROACH WILL BE DEFINED IN A COMPUTER SIMULATION. SOFTWARE FOR STATE ESTIMATION, VEHICLE DYNAMICS,AND VEHICLE CONTROL WILL BE DEVELOPED AND TESTED IN THE SIMULATION. THE SOFTWARE MODULES WILL BE INTEGRATED TO DEFINE A COMPUTATIONAL ARCHITECTURE, SPECIFIED AS COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE COMPONENTS ON A VME BUS. PHASE I WILL RESULT IN A DESIGN DOCUMENT SUPPORTING BREADBOARD PROTOTYPING AND VEHICLE TESTING IN PHASE II.