Unmanned Ground Vehicle
1
Special Issue on Unmanned Ground Vehicles FIGURES OMITTED
Unmanned Systems Magazine
Summer 1995, volume 13, number 3
UGV HISTORY 101:
A Brief History of
Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) Development Efforts
Douglas W. Gage (gage@nosc.mil)
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" -- George Santayana
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief survey of a number of different threads of development that have brought the UGV field to its current state, together with references to allow the interested reader to probe more deeply. In the broadest "dictionary" sense, an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) is any piece of mechanized equipment that moves across the surface of the ground and serves as a means of carrying or transporting something, but explicitly does NOT carry a human being. A discussion of such a broad universe of possible UGV systems needs some organizing principle, and in fact a taxonomy of
UGV systems could be based upon any of a number of characteristics of each system, including:
• the purpose of the development effort (often, but not always, the performance of some application-specific mission);
• the specific reasons for choosing a UGV solution for the application (e.g., hazardous environment, strength or endurance requirements, size limitation);
• the "long pole" technological challenges, in terms of functionality, performance, or cost, posed by the application;
• the system's intended operating area (e.g., indoor evironments, anywhere indoors, outdoors on roads, general cross-country terrain, the deep seafloor, etc.);
• the vehicle's mode of locomotion (e.g., wheels, tracks, or legs);
• how the vehicle's path is determined (i.e., control and navigation techniques employed).
To reasonably limit its scope, this survey will focus principally on the large number of systems where the
"long pole" technological challenge is or has been in the area of navigation and control.
Special Issue on Unmanned Ground Vehicles FIGURES OMITTED
Unmanned Systems Magazine
Summer 1995, volume 13, number 3
UGV HISTORY 101:
A Brief History of
Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) Development Efforts
Douglas W. Gage (gage@nosc.mil)
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" -- George Santayana
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief survey of a number of different threads of development that have brought the UGV field to its current state, together with references to allow the interested reader to probe more deeply. In the broadest "dictionary" sense, an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) is any piece of mechanized equipment that moves across the surface of the ground and serves as a means of carrying or transporting something, but explicitly does NOT carry a human being. A discussion of such a broad universe of possible UGV systems needs some organizing principle, and in fact a taxonomy of
UGV systems could be based upon any of a number of characteristics of each system, including:
• the purpose of the development effort (often, but not always, the performance of some application-specific mission);
• the specific reasons for choosing a UGV solution for the application (e.g., hazardous environment, strength or endurance requirements, size limitation);
• the "long pole" technological challenges, in terms of functionality, performance, or cost, posed by the application;
• the system's intended operating area (e.g., indoor evironments, anywhere indoors, outdoors on roads, general cross-country terrain, the deep seafloor, etc.);
• the vehicle's mode of locomotion (e.g., wheels, tracks, or legs);
• how the vehicle's path is determined (i.e., control and navigation techniques employed).
To reasonably limit its scope, this survey will focus principally on the large number of systems where the
"long pole" technological challenge is or has been in the area of navigation and control.