Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Distributed Simulation and Middleware for Networked UAS

  • Published:
Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

As a result of the advances in solid state, electronics, sensor, wireless communication technologies, as well as evolutions in the material science and manufacturing technologies, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have become more accessible by civilian entities, industry, as well as academia. There is a high level of market driven standardisation in the electronics and mechanical components used on UAVs. However, the implemented software of a UAS does not exhibit the same level of standardisation and compartmentalisation. This is a major bottleneck limiting software maintenance, and software reuse across multiple UAS programs. This paper addresses the software development processes adapted by the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR) in major UAS projects. The presented process model promotes software reuse without sacrificing the reliability and safety of the networked UAS with particular emphasis on the role of distributed simulation and middleware in the development and maintenance processes.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. NATO, STANAG 4586 (Standard Interfaces of UAV Control System (UCS) for NATO UAV Interoperability), NATO Standardization Agency (NSA) (2004)

  2. Ernst, D., Valavanis, K., Garcia, R., Craighead, J.: Unmanned vehicle controller design, evaluation and implementation: from MATLAB to printed circuit board. J. Intell. Robot. Syst. 49, 85–108 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Song, S.J., Liu, H.: Hardware-in-the-loop simulation framework design for a UAV embedded control system. In: Control Conference CCC 2006, pp. 1890–1894 (2006)

  4. Gösta, P.D., Kuchcinski, G.K., Sandewall, E., Nordberg, K., Skarman, E., Wiklund, J.: The WITAS unmanned aerial vehicle project. In: ECAI 2000. Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pp. 747–755. Berlin (2000)

  5. Henning, M.: The rise and fall of CORBA. ACM Queue 4, 28–34 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Maffeis, S., Schmidt, D.C.: Constructing reliable distributed communication systems with CORBA. Commun. Mag., IEEE 35, 56–60 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Henning, M., Vinoski, S.: Advanced CORBA programming with C++: Addison-Wesley (1999)

  8. Brooks, A., Kaupp, T., Makarenko, A., Williams, S., Oreback, A.: Orca: a component model and repository. In: Brugali, D. (ed.) Software Engineering for Experimental Robotics, vol. 30 of STAR, pp. 231–251. Springer (2007)

  9. Corke, P., Sikka, P., Roberts, J., Duff, E.: DDX: a distributed software architecture for robotic systems. In: Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation. Canberra Australia (2004)

  10. Paunicka, J.L., Corman, D.E., Mendel, B.R.: A CORBA-based middleware solution for UAVs. In: Fourth IEEE International Symposium on Object-oriented Real-time Distributed Computing, ISORC-2001, pp. 261–267. Magdeburg Germany (2001)

  11. Jangy, J.S., Tomlinz, C.J.: Design and implementation of a low cost, hierarchical and modular avionics architecture for the DragonFly UAVs. In: Proceedings of the AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference. Monterey (2002)

  12. Wills, L., Kannan, S., Heck, B., Vachtsevanos, G., Restrepo, C., Sander, S., Schrage, D., Prasad, J.V.R.: An open software infrastructure for reconfigurable control systems. In: Proceedings of the American Control Conference, pp. 2799–2803 (2000)

  13. Kuo, Y.-h., MacDonald, B.A.: Designing a distributed real-time software framework for robotics. In: Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation (ACRA). Canberra (2004)

  14. Croak, T.J.: Factors to consider when selecting CORBA implementations, CrossTalk. J. Def. Softw. Eng. 14, 17–21 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Group, O.M.: Common object request broker architecture—for embedded, Draft Adopted Specification. http://www.omg.org/docs/ptc/06-05-01.pdf (2006)

  16. Boehm, B.W.: Seven basic principles of software engineering. J. Syst. Software 3, 3–24 (1983)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Department of Defense, D.5000.61, DoD modeling and simulation verification, validation, and accreditation. http://www.cotf.navy.mil/files/ms/DoDI500061_29Apr96.pdf (2003)

  18. Sukkarieh, S., Nettleton, E., Kim, J.-H., Ridley, M., Göktoǧan, A.H., Durrant-Whyte, H.: The ANSER Project: data fusion across multiple uninhabited air vehicles. Internat. J. Robot. Research 22, 505–539 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Göktoǧan, A.H.: A software framework for seamless R&D of a networked UAS. In: PhD Thesis, Australian Centre for Field Robotics, School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering Sydney. The University of Sydney (2007)

  20. Kim, J., Sukkarieh, S.: Autonomous airborne navigation in unknown terrain environments. IEEE Trans. Aeros. Electron. Syst. 40, 1031–1045 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Nettleton, E.: ANSER past and present—multi UAV experimental research. In: The IEE Forum on Autonomous Systems, (Ref. No. 2005/11271), p. 9 (2005)

  22. Nettleton, E., Ridley, M., Sukkarieh, S., Göktoǧan, A.H., Durrant-Whyte, H.: Implementation of a decentralised sensing network aboard multiple UAVs. Telecommun. Syst. 26(2–4), 253–284 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Ridley, M., Nettleton, E., Göktoǧan, A.H., Brooker, G., Sukkarieh, S., Durrant-Whyte, H.F.: Decentralised ground target tracking with heterogeneous sensing nodes on multiple UAVs. In: The 2nd International Workshop on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN’03), pp. 545–565. Palo Alto, California, USA (2003)

  24. Sukkarieh, S., Göktoǧan, A.H., Kim, J.-H., Nettleton, E., Randle, J., Ridley, M., Wishart, S., Durrant-Whyte, H.: Cooperative data fusion and control amongst multiple uninhabited air vehicles. In: ISER’02, 8th International Symposium on Experimental Robotics. Sant’Angelo d’Ischia, Italy (2002)

  25. Bryson, M., Sukkarieh, S.: Toward the real-time implementation of inertial SLAM using bearing-only observations. In: Journal of Field Robotics (2006)

  26. Buttazzo, G.C.: Hard real-time computing systems: predictable scheduling algorithms and applications. In: 2nd ed. p. 425. New York, Springer (2005)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  27. Nettleton, E.: Decentralised architectures for tracking and navigation with multiple flight vehicles. In: PhD Thesis, Department of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering Sydney. The University of Sydney (2003)

  28. Kim, J.-H.: Autonomous navigation for airborne applications. PhD Thesis, Australian Centre for Field Robotics, School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering Sydney. The University of Sydney, p. 237 (2004)

  29. Cole, D.T., Göktoǧan, A.H., Sukkarieh, S.: The implementation of a cooperative control architecture for UAV teams. In: 10th International Symposium on Experimental Robotics (ISER’06). Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (2006)

  30. Endsley, M.R., Garland, D.J.: Theoretical underpinning of situation awareness: a critical review. In: NJ, M., Erlbaum, L. (eds.) Situation Awareness Analysis and Measurement: Analysis and Measurement, pp. 3–33 (2000)

  31. Cole, D.T., Sukkarieh, S., Göktoǧan, A.H.: System development and demonstration of a UAV control architecture for information gathering missions. J. Field Robot. 23, 417–440 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Cole, D.T., Sukkarieh, S., Göktoǧan, A.H., Hardwick-Jones, R.: The development of a real-time modular architecture for the control of UAV teams. In: Field and Service Robotics, FSR’05, pp. 321–332. Port Douglas, Australia (2005)

  33. Michael, R.G., Matthew, L.G., Jeffrey, S.R.: Cooperation without communication. In: Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc., pp. 220–226 (1988)

  34. Otanez, P.G., Campbell, M.E.: Hybrid cooperative reconnaissance without communication. In: 44th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control’05 and European Control Conference’05. CDC-ECC ’05, pp. 3541–3546 (2005)

  35. Chung, C.F., Göktoǧan, A.H., Cheang, K., Furukawa, T.: Distributed simulation of forward reachable set-based control for multiple pursuer UAVs. In: SimTecT 2006 Conference Proceedings, pp. 171–177. Melbourne, Australia (2006)

  36. Speranzon, A., Johansson, K.H.: On some communication schemes for distributed pursuit-evasion games. In: Proceedings of 42nd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, pp. 1023–1028 (2003)

  37. Göktoǧan, A.H., Nettleton, E., Ridley, M., Sukkarieh, S.: Real time Multi-UAV simulator. In: IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA’03), pp. 2720–2726. Taipei, Taiwan (2003)

  38. Göktoǧan, A.H., Sukkarieh, S., Işıkyıldız, G., Nettleton, E., Ridley, M., Kim, J.-H., Randle, J., Wishart, S.: The real-time development and deployment of a cooperative multi-UAV system. In: ISCIS03 XVIII - Eighteenth International Symposium on Computer and Information Sciences, Antalya—Türkiye, pp. 576–583 (2003)

  39. DMSO: High level architecture for simulation interface specification, defence modelling and simulation office (DMSO). https://www.dmso.mil/public/ (1996)

  40. O.M.G. (OMG): CORBA: Common Object Request Broker Architecture. http://www.corba.org

  41. Göktoǧan, A.H., Sukkarieh, S.: Simulation of multi-UAV missions in a real-time distributed hardware-in-the-loop simulator. In: Proceeding of the 4th International Symposium on Mechatronics and its Applications (ISMA07). Sharjah, UAE (2007)

  42. Göktoǧan, A.H., Brooker, G., Sukkarieh, S.: A compact millimeter wave radar sensor for unmanned air vehicles. In: Preprints of the 4th International Conference on Field and Service Robotics, pp. 101–106. Lake Yamanaka, Yamanashi, Japan (2003)

  43. Nettleton, E.W., Durrant-Whyte, H.F., Gibbens, P.W., Göktoǧan, A.H.: Multiple platform localisation and map building. In: Sensor Fusion and Decentralised Control in Robotic Stystems III, pp. 337–347. Boston, USA (2000)

  44. Sukkarieh, S., Yelland, B., Durrant-Whyte, H., Belton, B., Dawkins, R., Riseborough, P., Stuart, O., Sutcliffe, J., Vethecan, J., Wishart, S., Gibbens, P., Göktoǧan, A.H., Grocholsky, B., Koch, R., Nettleton, E., Randle, J., Willis, K., Wong, E.: Decentralised data fusion using multiple UAVs - The ANSER Project. In: FSR 2001, 3rd International Conference on Field and Service Robotics, Finland, pp. 193–200 (2001)

  45. Göktoǧan, A.H., Sukkarieh, S.: Role of modelling and simulation in complex UAV R&D projects. In: 1st National Defense Applications, Modeling and Simulation Conference, (USMOS’05), pp. 157–166. Ankara-Türkiye (2005)

  46. Göktoǧan, A.H., Sukkarieh, S., Cole, D.T., Thompson, P.: Airborne vision sensor detection performance simulation. In: The Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC’05), pp. 1682–1687. Orlando, FL, USA (2005)

  47. Bourgault, F., Göktoǧann, A.H., Furukawa, T., Durrant-Whyte, H.: Coordinated search for a lost target in a Bayesian world. In: Advanced Robotics, Special Issue on Selected Papers from IROS 2003, vol. 18, pp. 979–1000 (2004)

  48. Furukawa, T., Bourgault, F., Durrant-Whyte, H.F., Dissanayake, G.: Dynamic allocation and control of coordinated UAVs to engage multiple targets in a time-optimal manner. In: IEEE International Conference Proceedings on Robotics and Automation, pp. 2353–2358 (2004)

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. ARC Centre of Excellence for Autonomous Systems Australian Centre for Field Robotics School of Aerospace, Mechanical, and Mechatronic Engineering, The University of Sydney, 2006, NSW, Australia

    Ali Haydar Göktoǧan & Salah Sukkarieh

Authors
  1. Ali Haydar Göktoǧan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Salah Sukkarieh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ali Haydar Göktoǧan.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Göktoǧan, A.H., Sukkarieh, S. Distributed Simulation and Middleware for Networked UAS. J Intell Robot Syst 54, 331–357 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-008-9269-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-008-9269-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation