PointCom: Making Robotic Vehicles Easier to Pilot
Unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) will play an important role in the nation's next-generation ground forces, and control systems are critical to their success. Current widely-deployed UGVs do not incorporate algorithms for autonomous behavior, rather are controlled remotely via teleoperation (remote control) much like a teenager's radio-controlled cars or planes. Fully teleoperated devices require constant focus and mastery of controls and are thus manpower and attention intensive. While researchers and developers continue to study and improve autonomy technologies that might obviate this teleoperated paradigm, the technologies of today are not thought to be sufficiently robust for full autonomy under most real-world UGV applications.
The rapidly evolving PointCom system (short for Point-and-Go™ Command) will enable soldiers to control UGVs through simple taps on a mobile computing (i.e. tablet or PDA) interface. By fusing proprietary image processing methods with advanced navigation algorithms, and displaying the results with interface techniques drawn from the commercial video game industry, PointCom delivers a simple, robust navigation technology that can be used to command one UGV or a dozen.
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PointCom is being developed by Quantum Signal, LLC for the United States Army TACOM. For more information, please contact us at robotics@quantumsignal.com.
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