Army ground robotics research program

Abstract

The U.S. Army is undergoing a transformation from Cold War era "heavy" forward-deployed forces arrayed against a monolithic known enemy to lighter, more flexible, U.S.-based forces able to rapidly engage in a full spectrum of military operations. Unmanned systems can potentially contribute towards achieving this goal of a highly capable and flexible ground force. To support this effort, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory has undertaken a long-term research program to support technology development for unmanned ground vehicle systems. Over the course of the past year, this multifaceted effort has made significant technical strides, demonstrating sufficient technological maturity to potentially enable incorporation of semi-autonomous unmanned vehicles into the initial fielding of Future Combat Systems (FCS), while successfully conducting additional research directed toward improved capabilities for later increments of FCS and Land Warrior systems.

Computer Vision on Mars

“…A Demo III followon activity, PerceptOR, and LAGR also involved systematic, quantitative field testing. For results of DemoIII, RCTA, and PerceptOR, see (Shoemaker and Bornstein, 2000;Technology Development for Army Unmanned Ground Vehicles, 2002;Bornstein and Shoemaker, 2003;Bodt and Camden, 2004;Krotkov et al, 2007) and references therein. LAGR focused on applying learning methods to autonomous navigation.…”

A model of computation and representation in the brain

“…It consisted of a hierarchy of computational units, each of which inputs a motor command from above, combines it with feedback from below, and outputs control commands to subordinate units to generate coordinated actions that drive the system toward the goal [11]. This line of research culminated 30 years later in the 4D/RCS reference model architecture developed for the Army Research Lab Demo III Experimental Unmanned Vehicle program [19,82]. The 4D in 4D/RCS refers to the incorporation of the 4D approach to dynamic vision developed by Ernst Dickmanns and his students for control of autonomous vehicles [27].…”

Discrete Event Command & Control for Networked Teams with Multiple Missions

“…DEC allows fast mission programming of distributed teams, and facilitates rapid deployment of man/machine teams, wireless sensor networks, and other event-based systems. DEC provides a seamless C&C architecture that facilitates quickly turning any deployed team into a tactical unit 12 . The DEC runs on a C2 computer and functions as a feedback controller in real-time.…”