SRS : SRS UGV Components : MARS

MODULAR AUTONOMOUS ROBOTIC SYSTEM (MARS)

The range of potential applications for mobile robots is enormous. It includes agricultural robotics applications, routine material transport in factories, warehouses, office buildings and hospitals, indoor and outdoor security patrols, inventory verification, hazardous material handling, hazardous site cleanup, inspection of hazardous waste storage sites, and numerous military applications.

Currently, programming mobile robots even in structured environments requires highly trained engineers. Many new application areas for mobile robots will open up and current applications will be more successful when it is easy for end users to assign mobile robots to new tasks.

MARS Interface Between OCU and the Vehicle

Autonomous vehicle operation in highly structured environments has been successful, and even routine in some cases. For example, Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) are routinely used for material transporting in factories and warehouses. AGV applications are not as cost effective as they could be; however, since the structuring of the environment typically requires the floors to be cut and guidepath wires to be buried. Also, assigning robots to new tasks is difficult and further constrained by the need to follow guidepaths, and the limited or nonexistent ability of the vehicles to modify their operations or trajectories based on conditional decisions using real world feedback.

MARS Iconic User Interface for Programming Robot Actions

Omnitech Robotics has completed a NASA JPL-sponsored SBIR phase II effort on a contract called Modular Autonomous Robotic Vehicle System project. Omnitech developed open-system architec-ture hardware and soft-ware infrastructure technologies for config-uring any vehicle to use a variety of sensors and navigation strategies optimized to the specific application and operational environment of the robot. The work on MARS included development of a preliminary graphical user interface for creating and editing mobile robot plans, and for supervising mobile robot operations.

MARS Dialog Box for Setting Up Wall Following

The mobile robotics market is highly fragmented.  It is common for robots of a particular configuration to be needed in only small quantities. Omnitech Robotics has developed a successful strategy for delivering custom teleoperated mobile robots quickly and at a reasonable cost using a standard kit of actuators, operator control units, and software. Rather than build special purpose vehicles for teleoperation, we adapt off-the-shelf vehicles, ranging from small all-terrain vehicles to large military tanks. Our goal is to develop a similar kit to adapt a range of vehicles for cost-effective, flexible autonomous operations in semi-structured environments. Graphical programming and user interface for flexible robot tasking is key to widespread mobile robotics commercial success, since it will help to keep training and operation costs low.

MARS Datasheet in PDF format (97k).