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Land, Sea and Air:The Application of JAUS and STANAG 4586 for

Cross-Domain Unmanned Vehicle Control

Mike Meakin, B. Sc., PMP

President, InnUVative Systems

Prepared for: Unmanned Systems Interoperability Conference

San Diego, Oct 2010

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Outline

• Background

• Description of STANAG 4586 system

• Description of 4CE Control Station

• JAUS VSM Implementation Process

• Difficulties & Successes Encountered

• Path Forward for Interoperability

• Conclusion

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Company Background

• Software development company founded in January 2007 by three individuals with more than 19 years experience in the UAV software development industry

• Specifically targeted at the unmanned vehicles industry– Specializing in UV software development

• Using well recognized engineering practices within an established and controlled development environment– Follow fundamental project management principles as

recognized by the Project Management Institute

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Accomplishments

• Member of STANAG-4586 Working Group• Developed STANAG-4586 Vehicle Specific Module (VSM) for the Joint

Architecture for Unmanned Systems (JAUS) protocol– allows control of a JAUS compliant vehicle from a STANAG-4586 compliant UAV

Control Station

• Active with SAE AS-4 JAUS Committee defining JAUS standard• Integrated and flew Aeryon Labs Scout MAV with STANAG-4586 VSM• Member of Transport Canada UAV Working Group defining regulations for UAV

operations in Canadian air space• Working with Singaporean customer to develop military UAV capability and

ConOps including integration of CCI backend for data and control distribution• Developed and delivered Introductory UAV course for PMs, engineers and military

officers in Singapore (2009 & 2010)• Currently integrating MicroPilot UAV autopilot, used by dozens of fixed wing and

rotary wing UAVs• Working on Canadian Space Agency manipulator solution for Lunar rover

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The

Command, Control, Communications, Coordination and Execution (4CE) Control

Station©

from InnUVative Systems offers an affordable, STANAG-4586 compliant solution for all systems!

4CE Control Station© Software

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Description of 4586 System Elements

• The 4CE Control Station© software is our flag ship product– Command, Control, Communication,

Coordination & Execution– It is compliant with STANAG 4586

Interoperability standard

• The Vehicle Specific Module (VSM) is really a System Specific Module as it applies to sensors, datalinks and other systems as well– STANAG 4586 is a complex standard and

is still undergoing changes so specialist knowledge is necessary

– Likewise JAUS for ground vehicles

• CCISM may be customer-specific

VSM

CORE UCS

CCISM

HC

I

OPERATOR(S)

DLI

CCI

AV

C4ISYSTEM

Payload

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InnUVative Systems Software…

• Hardware agnostic• OS agnostic (Windows & Linux)• Vehicle agnostic• Domain agnostic

• Portable• Affordable• User Configurable• Intuitive

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Simplified Interfaces

Using simplified interfaces to hide the underlying complexity of the system, the operator is able to quickly and easily place the vehicles and payloads where he needs them to accomplish his mission.

This- complicated 4586 connection logic…

Becomes this- a simplified user interface for connecting

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Advanced Status Panel

The Status Panel not only informs the operator when situations arise requiring their attention, it also supplies them with a fully interactive checklist wizard that guides them through the corrective action necessary for specific problems.

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User Configurability

The emergency checklist wizard is xml-based, allowing the user to modify it without coming back to InnUVative Systems.

Likewise, the end user can define their own warning messages to post to the status panel using the STANAG 4586 warning message format.

All source code developed for the customer is delivered to customer, along with the STANAG 4586 message set libraries. This allows the customer to modify their protocol and map the changes to the 4586 message set- or even generate a system-specific dialog- without engaging InnUVative Systems

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JAUS VSM Implementation: Requirements• The SysML approach allowed the two ICDs to be placed into

the same format for increased ease in mapping of ICD elements, despite the fact that the two ICDs were constructed in totally different manners:

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• Reviewing the two ICDs side-by-side certainly highlights the differences between the two:

– JAUS assumed commands such as iris and gain settings and location wrt CofG for a camera that STANAG does not include as part of its basic message set

– JAUS assumes information such as the platform boundaries, platform geometry, turn radius, static rollover limit, etc. would be important

– STANAG assumes barometric pressure is important information to be exchanged

• Each protocol clearly reflected it’s heritage…• The JAUS protocol was well-suited to supporting intra-system “plug n play”

hardware and utilizes protocol extensibility via use of “experimental” messages to achieve this

• STANAG protocol is designed with inter-system interoperability as its explicit goal and uses abstraction via the use of standard graphical interfaces to achieve this

• The conclusion was that JAUS is truly a well thought out architecture with a protocol that is extensible while STANAG is a truly well thought out protocol with little to no aspirations as an architecture…

JAUS VSM Implementation: Requirements

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JAUS VSM Implementation: Requirements• The original intent was to make this exercise as challenging to a VSM

implementation as possible:– Identified specific datalink, vehicle and manipulator messages to support

• Opportunity arose with a vehicle manufacturer who was interested in using our VSM for a sea vehicle demo– Modified version of STANAG from 2.1 to 2.4 and JAUS from 3-2 to 3-3– Also changed manipulator messages for camera messages

• Set of JAUS messages supported (uplink and downlink):– 10 of 23 system messages;– 4 of 8 datalink messages (start/ stop, hi/ low power, point, etc. supported);– 10 of 41 vehicle messages (steering, attitude, engine and waypoint supported);– 6 of 18 camera messages (pointing, zoom, focus, etc. supported)– Zero manipulator messages

• No support for service connections (just queried periodically)- this accounted for most of the unsupported system messages

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Difficulties & Successes Encountered

• Change to STANAG 4586 version and modification to target messages for JAUS– The lack of backwards compatibility- even from STANAG 2.1 to 2.4- made this

kind of switch non-trivial– Use of the SysML approach to requirements shielded the developers from these

issues

• Ambiguity in ICDs– Vehicle_ID_Update: “This is the vehicle ID that will be replace the current

Vehicle ID” this was corrected but is an example of the issues found when actually implementing an ICD for real

• STANAG Connection Logic– Need sequence diagram and use cases to explain– Intent of virtual vehicles may not be needed in real life…

• SVN proved very capable of rolling back code when needed• Support for Presence Vector within JAUS was not clearly understood

by developers in first implementation

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Results of JAUS VSM Implementation

As a measure of the VSM capability itself, we had:

• A total of 321 tests were developed and executed for the VSM, with only12 failures (only minor functionality) for a 96.3% pass rate

• The EA tool allowed explicit checks of traceability to ensure that all requirements have both a “Realization” link and a “Test” link

• The level of effort expended for this development effort was approximately one person year– This yielded not only a functional JAUS VSM but also two test tools and a re-

usable code base that makes the futureVSM development much faster and lower risk

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The Future of Interoperability

• Based on our experience of developing this System Specific Module for JAUS, InnUVative Systems has developed an approach to interoperability between the two standards that allows a high degree of supported functionality between units, even in the absence of specific training on a given vehicle or system...

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4586 UAV Interoperability

Combined UAV Combat Operations•Giving the soldier an organic air capability is important•Allowing that organic air capability to leverage off wide area surveillance platforms allows him to put what he sees into context with the wider battle…

It’s useful for the soldier to know:• There is a fire fight two blocks North• A bridge is out three blocks East• Etc.

Mixed assets:•C7•mortars and•artillery Likewise:•micro/ small•tactical and•MALE UAVsNeed mixed assets for different tasks

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Interoperability with STANAG 4586

STANAG 4586 Compliant control station with Vehicle Specific Module• Level of Interoperability 5 (FULL)

STANAG 4586Core Msg

Vehicle Specific

STANAG 4586Core Msg

Vehicle Specific

Vehicle SpecificModule

STANAG 4586 Compliant control station with no Vehicle Specific Module• Level of Interoperability 3/4 (~80% mission capability after launch)

In this example, every fielded MAV system (e.g. 3500 Ravens) becomes an RVT for every 4586 tactical or MALE (e.g. Sky Warrior) vice the half dozen or so RVTs currently available for each tactical/ MALE system

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Interoperability

• It is important to note that the common protocol solution is only one part of the interoperability problem1. Need common waveform solution (STANAG 7085

TCDL, STANAG 4660 Common C2 link, etc.)

2. For given control station, features supported by common protocol are presented as the same user interface across all systems

• Allows operators untrained on specific systems to safely take control knowing system will behave as expected

• Greatly reduces delta training as new UV systems are added

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Cross Domain Interoperability

Combined UGV/ UAV Combat Operations•Giving the soldier the ability to see what threats are around the corner has been extremely important•The next step is to relieve the soldier of having to be first around the corner to address the threat• Some systems have already anticipated the push to arm UGVs

•Integration of armed UGVs- via JAUS or native protocol- into STANAG4586 allows the combined operations goal identified in the UAS Roadmap from OSD

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STANAG 4586/ JAUS Interoperability

STANAG 4586 Compliant control station with JAUS VSM• Level of Interoperability 3/4 (~80% of mission??)

STANAG 4586Core Msg

Vehicle Specific

JAUSCore Msg

JAUSExperimentalMsg

Vehicle SpecificModule

Support for JAUS Core message set allows operation of most of a mission even by operators unfamiliar with the system

JAUSVSM

Use of domain agnostic control and status interfaces is key to allowing operator control of different systems

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STANAG 4586/ JAUS Interoperability

STANAG 4586 Compliant control station with JAUS VSM + Veh specific tranlsation• Level of Interoperability 5 (FULL)

STANAG 4586Core Msg

Vehicle Specific

JAUSCore Msg

JAUSExperimentalMsg

Vehicle SpecificModule

An additional plug-in translates the JAUS Exp Msg set to 4586 and VSM GUI

JAUSVSM

Veh Spec Module

By adding a vehicle-specific plug-in, the JAUS control set can be expanded to support the full vehicle functionality

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Harmonization of 4586 & JAUS• Not surprisingly, there is a large overlap between the two core message sets already

• Coordination between the two standards authorities could further increase this overlap, thus improving interoperability between systems, even in the absence of vehicle-specific support

JAUSMessage Set

4586Message Set

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Conclusions

• Interoperability between STANAG 4586 and JAUS is possible to a significant degree right now

• Greater interoperability is inevitable in the future• The two standards do not have to be treated as competitive

but can instead be complementary• Coordination between the two standards bodies could define

a largely common core message set that supports the “~80% mission” via the core message sets only– This then supports many of the inter-unit and international

interoperability goals on an opportunistic basis!

• Use of a common control station supporting domain-agnostic control interfaces will allow interoperation with low risk and very low training overhead

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Join us in November at the Unmanned Systems Canada conference in Montreal

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Questions?