Expertise

Air–Ground Teamed Autonomy

Air–ground teamed autonomy research at the George H.W. Bush Combat Development Complex develops heterogeneous multi-robot systems (MRS) of air and ground vehicles designed to operate alongside humans in complex mission environments. Leveraging the Integration Proving Ground (IPG), these systems are developed and evaluated under realistic conditions to enhance soldier effectiveness and safety.

Objective

To advance multi-robot teaming for national security applications through:

  • Improved situational awareness and decision support
  • Increased human effectiveness and efficiency
  • Reduced risk by moving humans further from danger
  • Scalable autonomy enabling higher robot-to-operator ratios

Capabilities

Collaborative Situational Awareness

  • Multi-robot multi-target tracking (MR-MTT), or multi-robot multi-object trajectory estimation (MOTE)
  • Multi-robot semantic mapping, information sharing, and coordinated planning

Physical Coordination of Robots

  • Extreme terrain operation and recovery (ExTOR)
  • Coordinated take-off and landing (CTOL) of aerial vehicles on ground vehicles

Robust Autonomy in Challenging Environments

  • Mitigation of unreliable communications and degraded Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals
  • Fault tolerance for hardware degradation and failure
Air–Ground Teamed Autonomy
  • MRS including a Jeep Cherokee, HDT WOLF, and Grazer A collaboratively tracking static and dynamic objects in an off-road environment. By sharing observations, each robot maintains knowledge of all objects.
  • Autonomous Grazer A landing on an autonomous HDT WOLF in a moderate off-road environment.
  • PCR team composed of a Clearpath Moose and HDT WOLF. Tractive effort is shared through the physical link enabling extreme terrain operation and recovery.
  • Situational Awareness and Human-Machine Teaming