Developing a Chemical Reconnaissance Behavior for Unmanned Ground Vehicles Using the OneSAF Battlefield Simulation Tool

Abstract

One of the goals of the U.S. Army Ground Robotics Research Program is to develop individual and group behaviors that allow the robots to contribute to battlefield missions such as reconnaissance. By using simulation tools, we are able to develop, debug, and test behaviors before porting them to actual robotic platforms. This affords the researchers the opportunity to expeditiously evaluate the behaviors in a diverse set of environments and to explore variations in behavior algorithms without tying up limited robotic resources or putting these robotic vehicles at risk. This report describes our efforts to develop a proof-of-principle behavior initiated in simulation then ported to a team of surrogate robotic platforms. The issues discovered in porting the algorithm from simulation to the robotic platform are discussed. The report concludes with a discussion of possible extensions to the basic tool.