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Tutorial-03: MOOS-IvP Simulation Environment and Configuration Management
Prof. Henrik Schmidt
MIT, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Laboratory for Autonomous Marine Sensing Systems
Tue July 19th, 1230pm-130pm, MIT Building 32 Room 124 (Stata Center)
Abstract:
One of the major requirements for a succesful field deployment of autonomous vehicles is a
robust and reliable simulation testbed. However, equally critical is a configuration
management infrastructure which ensures a flawless and transparent transition of a succesfully
tested autonomy system to a vehicle in an actual field deployment.
The MIT Laboratory for Autonomous Marine Sensing Systems (LAMSS) has developed a comprehensive simulation environment for hetrerogeneous networks with autonomous underwater vehicles, surface craft and gliders operating MOOS-IvP payload autonomy systems. The virtual environment allows for simulation at different levels of fidelity of relevant undersea sensors, communication networking, and platform dynamics. The MOOS-IvP tool set incorporates a set of utilities supporting a robust configuration management infrastructure, which allows for easy modification of mission and behavior parameters, while ensuring that mission configuration is successfully transitioned to a vehicle in the field. Thus, the configuration management system ensures that the entire autonomy system configuration is transitioned to an operational vehicle, with only the interfaces to the outside world being completely or partially replaced by physics-based simulations of the environment, the platform and sensor dynamics, and the communication infrastructure.
The transparent transition is ensured by the simulators adhering to exactly the same ICDs as thy actual sensor and communication systems. This in turn allows for an incremental transition from simulation to operation, e.g. operating virtual sensing nodes within an actual undersea communication network for safe testing of new adaptive and collaborative maneuvers. This tutorial will describe the MIT-LAMSS simulation environment, with its suite of environmental acoustic simulators, and it's use for designing and executing an actual virtual experiment will be demonstrated in real time.