Autonomously gathering aerial data has many potential applications, from co-scouting with ground robots to providing live field information to dismounted units. The ARL team developed a number of autonomous multirotor capabilities, creating an infrastructure for further work at ARL and at Olin.
The current generation of man portable unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) often pose problems for researchers due to high unit price points and closed development architectures. Each UGV becomes a major investment for a research group and discourages heavy use under harsh field conditions, while closed software environments hinder necessary modifications. The Army Research Laboratory (ARL) approached the 2011-2012 Olin SCOPE Program with these problems in mind and asked the team to produce a man portable autonomous UGV for use as a research platform. The goals o the project focus on the development and production of a low-cost indoor/outdoor UGV that provides a modular interface for the rapid development of cutting edge software and sensor capabilities.
The Draper SCOPE project is a collaboration between Draper Labs and Olin College with the end goal of creating an unmanned ground vehicle to support robotics research at both Draper and Olin. This year's project focuses on converting an all-terrain vehicle to drive-by-wire control. Secondary goals include designing a modular payload system, continuing development on a cross-platform LabVIEW robotics toolbox and laying a foundation for all-weather and all-terrain autonomous operation.