NASA SBIR 2009 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Energid Technologies
One Mifflin Place, Suite 400
Cambridge, MA 02138 - 4946
(888) 547-4100

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
James English
jde@energid.com
One Mifflin Place, Suite 400
Cambridge, MA 02138 - 4946
(617) 401-7090 Extension :401

Estimated Technology Readiness Level (TRL) at beginning and end of contract:
Begin: 4
End: 6

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (Limit 2000 characters, approximately 200 words)
Energid Technologies proposes the development of a digital simulation to replace robotic vehicles in field studies. It will model the dynamics, terrain interaction, sensors, control, communications, and interfaces of a robotic vehicle with the goal of supporting validation and training. The simulation will be very easy to use by simple execution on a networked PC. It will connect to NASA's robot-control frameworks and be easy to configure using a drag-and-drop interface. It will be thorough in its ability to model a range of environments, from terrestrial to lunar, and through its ability to provide accurate sensor and truth data for analysis. It will include simulation of communication latency and bandwidth restrictions. Sensors will be modeled through a powerful plugin interface that supports tying stimulation of new sensor modalities to terrain and objects. The effort will include the development of robot, sensor, and environment models tailored to the simulation of field-study vehicles, and it will emphasize mimicking the network interfaces used by NASA. The proxy simulation will be able to model multiple and disparate robots simultaneously. Energid will implement and deliver a complete, executable system and an underlying C++ software toolkit.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
The proxy simulation tool will have application to many of NASA's training exercises and studies. Many types of robotic vehicles will need to be simulated for testing, verification, and training prior to upcoming lunar and planetary missions. The tool Energid proposes will reduce cost and improve schedule in many efforts and is expected to be widely used by NASA. In addition to the direct tool for proxy simulation, the underlying capability will be developed as a C++ software toolkit. This toolkit will benefit NASA in ways other than just proxy simulation. It will also support verification and validation and stand-alone simulation to test hardware improvements, control algorithms, and interface software. It will support the injection of robot and communication faults. Energid will commercialize the results of this project through support contracts and extensions to meet NASA's developing needs. Energid will partner with larger NASA contractors to commercialize the capability.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (Limit 1500 characters, approximately 150 words)
Energid will develop the proxy simulation as a software toolkit for resale and as a turnkey program. The toolkit will extend and augment Energid's Actin toolkit in its support for testing, training, and robot control. Robot developers in the government and in commercial entities will use the software to reduce development time and improve the quality of completed robotic systems. Potential toolkit customers will purchase the toolkit as software libraries and header files. By linking these libraries into their code, developers will have full access to all the simulation capability provided by the toolkit. Turnkey software customers will create new CAD models of robots in third-party software that can be loaded and used immediately. Energid currently sells its Actin robot control and simulation toolkit and its Actin Viewer turnkey software commercially, and is well positioned to commercialize the capability developed under this project.

TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING (NASA's technology taxonomy has been developed by the SBIR-STTR program to disseminate awareness of proposed and awarded R/R&D in the agency. It is a listing of over 100 technologies, sorted into broad categories, of interest to NASA.)

Human-Computer Interfaces Human-Robotic Interfaces Integrated Robotic Concepts and Systems Mobility Operations Concepts and Requirements Perception/Sensing Simulation Modeling Environment Software Development Environments Software Tools for Distributed Analysis and Simulation Teleoperation Testing Requirements and Architectures Training Concepts and Architectures