Li Zhong
National University of Singapore
Singapore
The project is focused on special GI support system for military teams. Result of the project is system that brings support for exploratory and other military teams. Scope of the system can be viewed in three points: Map surrounding area, Analyse landscape and Find the best solution for military action. The system should be able to create digital landscape model of the area that includes digital terrain model, objects on the terrain, object's movement (dynamic items). System should be able predict possible future situation (state of the landscape and dynamic items). System should be based on hardware (computers, robots, detectors, sensors, computer network, ...), software (services, clients, adaptive cooperate and distributed components, ...), data (knowledge base, neural networks, landscape model, ...) and framework (standards, metadata, ...). Robots used in system will have different sensors for movement, meteorology, radar, photography, video, GPS, EGNOS, and LPS. The robots must be able move in difficult terrain. There will be also standalone sensors distributed in the terrain by robots or soldiers. All components will be connected by wireless network. System will be based on service-oriented architecture. Every component will offer set of services. Principles of cooperate services will enable services chaining and orchestration. Services will be adaptive and could be automatically generated according to the situation. Some of the services could be developed in a short time and some of them need more research. Photogrammetry service creates 3D model from set of land photos from the robot's camera or sensor's camera. Radar service precises 3D model created by Photogrammetry service. Movement service returns set of information about moving objects in the landscape. System will be self-developed in the area of software. We hope that our agent services with artificial intelligence can handle themselves according to new conditions (for example new user needs) and can develop new software to solve the problem. The project has started in year 2002 and we believe that in 2010 will be all software components and all architecture available for first pilot testing. A bigger problem that will be probably solved later (2025) is in the hardware adaptability. Our hardware components should be able like software components chain themselves to prepare new component or develop completely new component. There we believe can help research in the area of biology-robots.