SBIR-STTR Award

A Mission Planning and Management System for UGVs with Language Translation and Graphical User Interface
Award last edited on: 9/11/2021

Sponsored Program
SBIR
Awarding Agency
DOD : Army
Total Award Amount
$2,456,035
Award Phase
2
Solicitation Topic Code
A09-204
Principal Investigator
Jordan Shelley

Company Information

Neya Systems LLC (AKA: Rhobotika LLC)

145 Lake Drive Suite 104
Wexford, PA 15090
   (724) 799-8078
   info@neyasystems.com
   www.neyasystems.com
Location: Single
Congr. District: 17
County: Allegheny

Phase I

Contract Number: ----------
Start Date: ----    Completed: ----
Phase I year
2010
Phase I Amount
$69,968
The long term goal for unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) in the services is to act as force multiplier, to reduce risk to human personnel, and to enable new tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). UGVs are intended to support a wide range of mission types ranging from EOD, to reconnaissance, to maritime interdiction support, to logistics. While semi-autonomy and autonomy capabilities continue to increase in technology readiness level (TRL) and move towards deployment, there is a gap in the development of the systems used to plan missions that tightly incorporate UGVs. We propose to: 1. Enable Seamless Integration between mission commanders and unmanned assets 2. Develop a Scalable Interaction Model based on available robot assets, defined tactical missions, and real time in-the-field situation. 3. Develop a Tactical Scripting Language that enables translation from commander’s intent to UGV commands, leveraging a large base of work in the Unmanned Surface Vehicle community. 4. Move beyond simple, isolated examples of autonomous robot command and control to address the broad challenge of mission planning and management. 5. Demonstrate how the low-level JAUS standardization work in SAE AS-4 can enable more effective use of robotic systems exercising greater autonomy.

Keywords:
Mission Planning, Jaus, Sae As4, Unmanned Ground Vehicles, Tactical Scripting Language, Model Driven Architecture, Mission Management System

Phase II

Contract Number: ----------
Start Date: ----    Completed: ----
Phase II year
2011
(last award dollars: 2016)
Phase II Amount
$2,386,067

As robots become more widely employed in tactical operations and gain greater autonomy for doing simple tasks, they must become more integrated into the processes of mission planning and management. This integration will come by means of standardized command and control interfaces mandated by the DoD and developed by the SAE AS-4 JAUS standards activity and proposed and upcoming SAE AS-4 standards Addressing UGV missions will require mission commanders to express mission plans in high level terms, using an intuitive interface, that does not require a significant amount of training, and makes use of symbology, language, and concepts that the war fighter is already familiar with. A mission planning system that exhibits these characteristics will accelerate both the technical and cultural adoption of UGVs within the Army and joint services. We propose to address some of the key questions related to how such a Mission Planning and Management System (MPMS) can be specified, designed, implemented, and tested. In this proposal, we present a plan to develop a fully functional prototype for an MPMS that can support the end-to-end workflow for tactical operations that include robotic support for missions such as route clearance, logistic convoys, persistent stare, and escort.

Keywords:
Mission Planning, Language Translation, Ugv, Model Driven Architecture, Jaus, Mission Language Translation