A New Breed of Robot Emerges

Abstract

Unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) are robotic ground vehicles capable of operating in a variety of environments and functioning in place of humans. A typical UGV, the PackBot by iRobot, is shown in Figure 1(left) and consists of a manipulator arm and sensor suite mounted on a mobile (in this case tracked) chassis. Also shown in Figure 1(right) is the OmniTread robot designed to search through rubble. UGVs of various kinds are used to do a variety of dirty, dull, and dangerous tasks, such as vacuuming a room harvesting crops, carrying heavy loads for long distances, or disabling explosives. In this article, we document the emergence of UGVs into the economic mainstream, describe the research needed to support their continued evolution, and present examples of current research at the University of Michigan's Ground Robotics Reliability Center (GRRC).

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Nov 23, 2010
Accession Number
ADA556503

Entities

People

  • A. G. Ulsoy
  • Dawn M. Tilbury

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Autonomy
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Collision Avoidance
  • Computer Vision
  • Computers
  • Energy Management
  • Environment
  • Ground Vehicles
  • Heuristic Methods
  • Manufacturing
  • Reliability
  • Robotics
  • Robots
  • Teleoperation
  • Universities
  • Unmanned Ground Systems
  • Unmanned Ground Vehicles
  • Vehicles

Readers

  • Aerial Unmanned Vehicle Swarm Micro Periodontal Dentistry.
  • Robotics and Automation.
  • Systems Analysis and Design

Technology Areas

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