Constructing a Movement Model for a Small Unit
J. Vince Pulido
University of Virginia
Craig Lennon
Army Research Lab
Mary Anne Fields
Army Research Lab
Laura Barnes
University of Virginia
The Autonomous Squad Member (ASM) project is a research effort to develop the intelligence that would allow a ground robot to support a dismounted unit with little human direction and intervention. In order to plan actions with respect to current priorities and to detect events which might signal a change in priorities, such intelligence must make predictions of the future actions of the soldiers it supports. We developed a model of squad movement allowing the robot to estimate future positions of the squad and arrival times. Specifically, we developed a technique which employs an iterated A* algorithm to bound the small unit's movement to a specified area based on an a priori map of the terrain, known mission constraints, and a weighted combination of costs, where the weight is derived from a possible mission context. By varying these weights, we can develop a diverse population of paths which represent the predicted position of the unit. We further model the time at which arrival at a given location is likely to occur.