Engineering Review of ANCAUS/AVATAR: An Enabling Technology for the Autonomous Land Systems Program?

Abstract : Following the guidelines of the Engineering Review Terms of Reference, this report examines whether ANC/EUS and/or VCS constitute an enabling technology for future Autonomous Land System (ALS) autonomous vehicles. Since 1989, forward thinking engineering has characterized the history of ANC/EUS and VCS. ANC/EUS has broken ground in network vehicle architectures, vehicle modularity, hardware self-discovery and robust multi-vehicle networking. Similarly, VCS has grown into a major business for CDL Systems Inc. through consistent technical superiority. Though conceived over 15 years ago, these systems remain sufficiently relevant and desireable to serve within the ILDS deployed to Afghanistan in 2003. This report reviews the historical background and current technical content of ANC/EUS, VCS, ALS and similar commercial/open source efforts. The subsequent comparative evaluation of ANC/EUS and commercial/open source technologies revealed that currently no single system constitutes a complete a multi-robot autonomous system architecture. The report concluded that while ANC/EUS was found to be technically well conceived, and often well executed, commercial/open source technologies are more capable in a multivehicle context and represent a lower technical risk. Specifically, the report concludes: (1) ANC/EUS is not an enabling technology for future autonomous vehicles and that; (2) ALS should adopt commercial/open source technology to support a new ALS architecture and (3) ALS should provide ANC/EUS compatibility and evaluate the ANCAEUS control codes as a guideline for future ALS vehicle interfaces.