The Mission Simulation Toolkit is customizable software designed for autonomous research purposes. It offers a flexible system for researchers to conduct their activities.
The Mission Simulation Toolkit (MST) project is an impressive software system that provides a flexible approach to autonomy research. The project was developed to facilitate autonomous planetary robotic missions as part of the Mission Simulation Facility (MSF) project in 2001. Autonomy is crucial to the success of robotic exploration, and the MST is designed to bridge the gap between autonomy software at the research level and software ready for space missions.
The requirements for a simulator that supports autonomy differ from conventional robot simulators. With high-level autonomy software, models of terrain, kinematics, dynamics, sensors, power, electromechanical subsystems, are required to control a complete robotic system. To test autonomy software in a range of situations, controllable variability and failure injection into these models are necessary. Moreover, mixed operating systems support and flexible interfaces are essential because autonomy software is developed using various platforms and may target robotic systems that are still under development.
The MST addresses all these requirements through a distributed framework based on the High-Level Architecture (HLA) standard. The framework's key feature allows users to plug-in new models to replace old ones with the same services. This provides significant flexibility, mainly when mixing and controlling fidelity levels. The MST also provides automatic code generation from robot interfaces defined with the Unified Modeling Language (UML), methods for maintaining synchronization across distributed simulation systems, XML-based robot description, and an environment server. Finally, the MSF supports third-party products such as dynamic models and terrain databases.
Though some simulation components of the kit are specifically designed for terrestrial surface rovers, the MST can be applied to any other domain, including aerial, aquatic, or space. This toolkit contains a Communication Object library that supports surface rover simulation and the following basic components: Simulation Controller (basic simulation setup and time management), Command Executive (to script a scenario), Locomotor (controls steering and locomotion of the rover), Dynamics Engine (simulates rover/terrain interaction), Power Manager (manages battery resource), Rock Detector (a basic distance/range detector), Display (a basic graphical 3-D display), and Debugger/Command Logger (for testing and logging simulation events).
Overall, the MST project is a powerful and flexible tool that provides excellent support for autonomy research. Its unique features and capabilities make it stand out from conventional robot simulators, and it is highly recommended for researchers looking into autonomous planetary robotic missions.
The requirements for a simulator that supports autonomy differ from conventional robot simulators. With high-level autonomy software, models of terrain, kinematics, dynamics, sensors, power, electromechanical subsystems, are required to control a complete robotic system. To test autonomy software in a range of situations, controllable variability and failure injection into these models are necessary. Moreover, mixed operating systems support and flexible interfaces are essential because autonomy software is developed using various platforms and may target robotic systems that are still under development.
The MST addresses all these requirements through a distributed framework based on the High-Level Architecture (HLA) standard. The framework's key feature allows users to plug-in new models to replace old ones with the same services. This provides significant flexibility, mainly when mixing and controlling fidelity levels. The MST also provides automatic code generation from robot interfaces defined with the Unified Modeling Language (UML), methods for maintaining synchronization across distributed simulation systems, XML-based robot description, and an environment server. Finally, the MSF supports third-party products such as dynamic models and terrain databases.
Though some simulation components of the kit are specifically designed for terrestrial surface rovers, the MST can be applied to any other domain, including aerial, aquatic, or space. This toolkit contains a Communication Object library that supports surface rover simulation and the following basic components: Simulation Controller (basic simulation setup and time management), Command Executive (to script a scenario), Locomotor (controls steering and locomotion of the rover), Dynamics Engine (simulates rover/terrain interaction), Power Manager (manages battery resource), Rock Detector (a basic distance/range detector), Display (a basic graphical 3-D display), and Debugger/Command Logger (for testing and logging simulation events).
Overall, the MST project is a powerful and flexible tool that provides excellent support for autonomy research. Its unique features and capabilities make it stand out from conventional robot simulators, and it is highly recommended for researchers looking into autonomous planetary robotic missions.
What's New
Version 1.0b: N/A