Inclusive Dates:  07/24/06 – 05/11/11

Background - Technology needed to facilitate the autonomous control of cars, trucks, tractors, and military vehicles has made dramatic advances in the last few years led by defense science programs such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge, DARPA Urban Challenge, and Office of Energy Management (OEM) car and truck industry advances in active safety systems and associated sensors. The Mobile Autonomous Robotics Technology Initiative (MARTI) was initiated to improve safety in urban traffic environments. MARTI is charged with developing new sensor, computing, and mobile technologies to augment vehicle platforms and provide autonomous vehicle capabilities.

Approach - MARTI is fusing the latest technology from multiple industries to meet the challenges associated with autonomous control of cars, trucks, tractors and military vehicles. Through the incorporation of technologies and design methodologies from multiple industries such as unmanned aerial systems, intelligent transportation systems, cognitive multi-agent systems, machine vision, engineering dynamics, hardware and software in-the-loop simulation, large-scale multi-function robotics, and safety and reliability systems, SwRI is developing a full-scale autonomous ground vehicle platform to be used for advanced engineering of intelligent vehicle systems and applications development.

Accomplishments - The project has completed the following phases:

• Concept development and validation that the program is a viable business area for SwRI.

• Development, which concluded with a demonstration at the ITS World Congress in New York City in November 2008. The demonstration included navigating five blocks of 11th Avenue in an autonomous fashion that included other moving vehicles and significant intersection negotiation as well as interacting with pedestrians.

• Robotics Rodeo 2009, Ft. Hood: Efforts to re-package using lower cost hardware were undertaken as well as adding cooperative vehicle functionality. The functionality to perform convoy operations as well as leader/follower operations was added so that MARTI could be demonstrated performing military convoy operations. This functionality included taking the lead position in navigating through city streets.

• Robotics Rodeo 2010, Ft. Benning: Efforts to re-package continued using lower cost hardware as well as adding additional functionality. The functionality to support personnel tracking, tele-operations, and seamless switching between modes was added so that SwRI could demonstrate military maneuvers that were not included in previous demonstrations. MARTI's ability to interact with pedestrians/soldiers is unique and of significant value to military applications.

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