A Modular, Scalable, Architecture for Unmanned Vehicles

Abstract

A modular, scalable architecture for use on unmanned vehicles has been developed at the Center for Intelligent Machines and Robotics under the direction of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Tyndall Air Force Base, FL. This state of the art architecture isolates five functionally cohesive sub-tasks into self-contained modules with well defined interfaces. The architecture consists of a Mobility Control Unit (MCU), Path Planner (PLN), Position System (POS), Detection and Mapping System (DMS), and a Primitive Driver (PD). The design considerations for the development of this architecture included sub-system modularity, implementation independent software interfaces, ability to expand system functionality through continued addition of modules (scale), and the goal of moving toward a standard architecture for autonomous systems. The focus of this paper is to present a modular architecture that addresses the above design considerations.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jul 01, 2000
Accession Number
ADA469064

Entities

People

  • Carl D. Crane
  • David G. Armstrong
  • David Novick
  • David Shahady
  • Jeffrey Wit
  • Phillip Adsit
  • Ralph English

Organizations

  • University of Florida

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Autonomy
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Air Force
  • Air Force Facilities
  • Air Force Research Laboratories
  • Autonomous Navigation
  • Autonomous Systems
  • Autonomous Vehicles
  • Collision Avoidance
  • Coordinate Systems
  • Inertial Navigation
  • Inertial Navigation Systems
  • Jet Propulsion
  • Military Research
  • Motion Planning
  • Navigation
  • Robotics
  • Unmanned Ground Systems
  • Unmanned Vehicles

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Parallel and Distributed Computing.
  • Robotics and Automation.
  • Software Engineering

Technology Areas

  • AI & ML
  • AI & ML - Autonomous Systems
  • Autonomy