Autonomous urban reconnaissance using man-portable UGVs

For the Wayfarer Project, funded by the US Army through TARDEC, we have developed technologies that enable manportable PackBot Wayfarer UGVs to perform autonomous reconnaissance in urban terrain. Each Wayfarer UGV can autonomously follow urban streets and building perimeters while avoiding obstacles and building a map of the terrain. Each UGV is equipped with a 3D stereo vision system, a 360-degree planar LIDAR, GPS, INS, compass, and odometry. The Hough transform is applied to LIDAR range data to detect building walls for street following and perimeter following. We have demonstrated Wayfarer’s ability to autonomously follow roads in urban and rural environments, while building a map of the surrounding terrain. Recently, we have developed a ruggedized version of the Wayfarer Navigation Payload for use in rough terrain and all-weather conditions. The new payload incorporates a compact Tyzx G2 stereo vision module and a high-performance Athena Guidestar INS/GPS unit.