CyberRAVE

CyberRAVE is a general-purpose framework to run and simulate multiple mobile robot systems. It provides a uniform interface for programming robots in a multiple-robot system so that programs may be developed in simulation and transferred to real robots with minimal effort. Real robots and virtual robots can also interact with each other. CyberRAVE’s simulation environment provides the capability for virtual sensors that may be placed on real or virtual robots and can detect robots (real and virtual) as well as virtual obstacles. In this manner, multiple-robot systems can be run entirely in simulation, with a combination of real and virtual entities, or with entirely real entities. Graphical user interfaces allow users to set up, execute, monitor, and interact with a run.

Two retrofitted R/C tanks (Patton & Rommel) are currently used to test the CyberRAVE environment. They are equipped with 8 ring sonars, 7 IR obstacle detectors, pan-tilt camera, stereo microphones, and 68HC11 microcontroller + i486 based PC104 for on-board computation and sensor information distribution.