Integrated simulation capabilities that are high-fidelity, fast, and have scalable architecture are essential to support autonomous vehicle design and performance assessment for the U.S. Army’s growing use of unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). With increased onboard autonomy, advanced vehicle models are needed to analyze and optimize control design and sensor packages over a range of urban and off-road scenarios. This task, funded by US Army TARDEC, is to jointly develop a mobility testbed for autonomous vehicles using JPL Dynamics and Real-Time Simulation Lab (Darts Lab) developed ROAMS vehicle modeling capability. The mobility testbed will support vehicle multi-body dynamics, terrain modeling, sensors, actuators, control, and path-planning for on- and off-road scenarios that is both real-time and high fidelity. ROAMS has been successfully used at JPL in several space mission-critical scenarios for NASA across multiple domains (cruise/orbiter, landers, and rovers). ROAMS is unique in its integrated approach to handling the high-fidelity dynamics, sensors, environment, control, and autonomy models that are required for such highly complex missions and are key attributes of future Army unmanned ground vehicles.
