An Interactive, Physics-Based Unmanned Ground Vehicle Simulator Leveraging Open Source Gaming Technology: Progress in the Development and Application of the Virtual Autonomous Navigation Environment (VANE) Desktop

Abstract

It is widely recognized that simulation is pivotal to vehicle development, whether manned or unmanned. There are few dedicated choices, however, for those wishing to perform realistic, end-to-end simulations of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). The Virtual Autonomous Navigation Environment (VANE), under development by US Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), provides such capabilities but utilizes a High Performance Computing (HPC) Computational Testbed (CTB) and is not intended for on-line, real-time performance. A product of the VANE HPC research is a real-time desktop simulation application under development by the authors that provides a portal into the HPC environment as well as interaction with wider-scope semi-automated force simulations (e.g. OneSAF). This VANE desktop application, dubbed the Autonomous Navigation Virtual Environment Laboratory (ANVEL), enables analysis and testing of autonomous vehicle dynamics and terrain/obstacle interaction in real-time with the capability to interact within the HPC constructive geo-environmental CTB for high fidelity sensor evaluations. ANVEL leverages rigorous physics-based vehicle and vehicle-terrain interaction models in conjunction with high-quality, multimedia visualization techniques to form an intuitive, accurate engineering tool. The system provides an adaptable and customizable simulation platform that allows developers a controlled, repeatable testbed for advanced simulations. ANVEL leverages several key technologies not common to traditional engineering simulators, including techniques from the commercial video-game industry. These enable ANVEL to run on inexpensive commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware. In this paper, the authors describe key aspects of ANVEL and its development, as well as several initial applications of the system.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2009
Accession Number
ADA535148

Entities

People

  • Christopher L. Ummins
  • David A. Horner
  • Gaurav Kewlani
  • Justin A Crawford
  • Karl D. Iagnemma
  • Matthew Toschlog
  • Mitchell M. Rohde
  • Randolph A. Jones

Organizations

  • Engineer Research and Development Center

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Autonomy
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Sensors

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Autonomous Navigation
  • Data Visualization
  • Engineering
  • Engineers
  • Graphical User Interface
  • Ground Vehicles
  • High Performance Computing
  • Reliability
  • Simulations
  • Simulators
  • Systems Engineering
  • Three Dimensional
  • Unmanned Ground Vehicles
  • Unmanned Systems
  • Unmanned Vehicles
  • Video Games
  • Virtual Reality

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Military Science and Technology Research and Modernization.
  • Robotics and Automation.
  • Software Engineering.

Technology Areas

  • Autonomy