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Press ReleasesFor Immediate ReleaseApplied Perception announces diverse set of unmanned ground vehicle software to support emerging military needs
Pittsburgh, PA – August 23, 2004– Applied Perception, Inc. (API), a Pittsburgh-based company that develops and licenses robotics-related technologies to market-leading companies in the fields of defense, transportation, agriculture, construction, and entertainment, announced today the availability of a wide range of standardized software components that provide mobility and related capabilities for unmanned ground vehicle platforms. Built on the DoD-mandated Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems (JAUS) specification, these components provide drop-in capabilities for robot system developers to add functions such as vehicle control, sensor processing, path following, mapping, obstacle detection and avoidance, and operator interfaces to their existing platforms. In addition, to support organizations who wish to develop their own JAUS-compliant components, Applied Perception’s jLib JAUS toolkit is also available. This toolkit provides low level JAUS message packing, transport, and routing capabilities that enable developers to quickly and easily create new JAUS-compliant applications or retrofit existing capabilities to immediately function within existing JAUS systems. It supports all of the core JAUS messages and components, as well as multiple message transport layers including Ethernet, RS-232/485, and shared memory. The jLib toolkit is available for Linux, QNX, Windows XP, and Windows CE, as well as embedded processors like the Rabbit. The individual components are available in both executable format for easy addition to existing systems, as well as with processing hardware to provide out-of-the-box functionality with minimal robotic system changes. Todd Jochem, President of Applied Perception says, “These products are a direct outgrowth of our internal development efforts, as well as our work with customers on projects with DARPA, the Army, and the Robotics Foundry. On those projects, we’ve had the opportunity to develop and test many technologies that we are now starting to get customer interest in deploying. Based on this, it seemed like now is an opportune time to move these technologies toward commercial deployment.” The commercial availability of these components represents the first step in the company’s efforts to commercialize robotics technologies to support and leverage the DoD’s efforts to deploy unmanned vehicles for the battlefield. “In the past, there hasn’t been significant attention paid to transitioning new robotics technologies to the commercial marketplace. In many cases, there wasn’t any real market. However, now there is a clear customer with real needs that our technology can address.” Jochem states. In addition to selling these components a la cart to end customers as add-on modules, API is working with robotic platform suppliers to add these technologies as standard features on their current and future line of vehicles. “This announcement supports what we have been hearing from our colleagues in the DoD – that standards-based software to support basic as well as more advanced unmanned ground vehicle operation is needed,” states Bill Thomasmeyer, President of the Pittsburgh-based Robotics Foundry. “We’re pleased that Applied Perception is commercializing technology that the RF was instrumental in developing and hope that this can be a building block for a thriving regional robotics industry.” # # # About Applied Perception, Inc. About The Robotics Foundry For further information, contact: Todd Jochem, Ph.D. Lynn Seay |
PRESS RELEASES:
SkunkWorks: The TARDEC Skunk Work project is centered on the TAGS-CX vehicle platform. This platform is a high-performance, high-speed, high-mobility JAUS-compliant semi-autonomous unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) with modular payload capabilities. It is the result of a collaborative design process involving personnel from Applied Perception Inc., TARDEC, and Dumur Industries.
RCCEE: Robotic Combat Casualty Extraction and Evacuation Overview: Robotics technologies that can seek, detect, extract and transport a wounded soldier from the point of injury to a field hospital. Numerous sensing, navigation, and other technologies have been researched and developed during this program.
LAGR: The DARPA LAGR program aims to develop completely autonomous off-road ground vehicle navigation technologies using only computer vision and machine learning techniques.
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