Dynamic Composable Simulations for Robotic Behaviors

The primary goal for this work will be to develop models and behaviors for entities within a simulation environment, specifically in the area of unmanned systems, with a user interface that allows for the creation of unique individual and team behaviorsfor insertion into a military and Homeland Defense simulation scenario. As they become available, OneSAF (Semi-Automated Forces) variants (OTB and OOS) will be used as baselines to test and develop autonomous behaviors for robotic systems.Capabilities planned for development include the following.* Robotic behavior development, mission planning (process models) & status tracking (using configured process model instances) capabilities for use by trainees* Execution of complex team behaviors where teams are comprised of heterogeneous units (manually operated/driven equipment, tele-operated equipment, autonomous vehicles, etc.)* Updating mission plans during exercises (in response to frag orders, re-direction to robotic teams, unreliable ground truth such as red forces not occupying expected positions, etc.)* Full interoperability with OneSAF simulation stations (mandatory)ACT intends to provide DoD contractors and commercial firms with technical products (including robotic/agent behavior modeling methodologies/tools and agent design methodologies/tools) and services needed to build and deploy robotic systems using asimulation-based development approach. ACT understands the long-term nature of robotics research and the business potential within the military community. Our envisioned simulation-based design approach can incorporate the quantified assessment of unit,team, and individual robotic behaviors before any robotic hardware needs to be constructed. To determine the efficacy of particular safety, navigation, team, or unit-level behaviors, the agent-based infrastructure, implementing a robotic behavior(software) component described in this proposal, will be used to evolve and test robotic behaviors needed in fielded robotic systems. Once these behaviors are sufficiently refined, robotic software components providing these behaviors can be ported toappropriate robot hardware. Using the products and services provided by ACT, DoD contractors will be able to produce higher quality robotic systems (for programs like FCS) in far less time.