Military Communications and Information Technology: A Trusted ...
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Military Communications and Information Technology: A Trusted ...

Military Communications and Information Technology: A Trusted ... Military Communications and Information Technology: A Trusted ...

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306 Military Communications and Information Technology... produce aerial photo and UGV can produce a 3D grid using laser scanners. Another example is a group of drones that must be coordinated to scan the corridor ahead of a convoy. This task can’t be done by a single robot and the group should be automatically fly in formation in a predefined distance from the first truck. In this paper we show an approach how a single user can control an MRS in similar situations using BML. The goal of our project was to demonstrate that the robots of MRS can be coordinated quickly and efficiently by using BML as a command and report language and using ROS as a communication standard between different robot systems. We defined a set of commands that should be supported by the MRS and how they should be implemented to test our approach. We use a simple hierarchical approach with intelligent node representing groups of robots and the control nodes for each robot. This means that one intelligent node receives the command from the user and this node is capable of breaking the command up into subcommands for all subordinate robots. This allows less coupling between the robots. Each node must only know how to interpret a command and what commands are supported by it subordinate units. Having the intelligent nodes on the robots makes it possible for the robots to be reactive to new situations even if the connection to the C2-Central is not available. The paper is structured as the following. In Section 2 some background information is given about supervisory control, BML and ROS. Section 3 describes the systems that are used in the project. This includes the graphical user interface and the robot systems of the Leibniz Universität Hannover and University of Siegen. Section 4 describes the challenges and benefits using ROS on the robots. The implementation of commands is described in section 5. A conclusion and an outlook are given in section 6. II. Background A. Supervisory control of Multi-Robot Systems The goal of our work is to provide supervisory control of Multi-Robot Systems without excessive human workload. Related work on controlling UAV Multi-Robot System was done by Cummings and Mitchell [1] and Nehme et al. [2]. The workload of controlling a UAV Multi-Robot System was analyzed by Dixon et al. [3]. Quite similar to the supervisory control of Multi-Robot Systems is the supervisory control of multi-agent systems (MAS) [4]. For that area different approaches are known. The first one is “control-by-behavior.” In this approach, different behaviors for each agent are defined and the operator selects one of them. However, this approach does not scale with larger groups of agents, more behaviors or more complex behaviors as mentioned by Wilson et al. [5]. Another approach is the “control-by-policy” approach. Here, the operator can define constraints or

Chapter 3: Information Technology for Interoperability and Decision... 307 advices in a limited natural language and the agent plans corresponding actions. This is e.g., used by Myers [6]. B. BML To express commands that are pushed from the user (C2 System) to the intelligent node on the lead robot and from there to the other robots we use Battle Management Language (BML) [7], because it is human readable, unambiguous, already used in military context, and in standardisation process of SISO. BML can be used to express orders, reports and requests between command and control systems (C2 systems), simulation systems and real units. In addition, BML also may be used to interact with robotic forces. Thus, it allows C2 systems and their users to interact with robot systems in the same way as with real units or units simulated in simulation systems. It is also possible to control robots with this language because it unambiguous and follows a formal grammar. We described in [8-9] how to control robots running our own middleware RoSe [10] by using BML. BML must be unambiguous to allow automatic processing. This unambiguousness is not self-evident for a language. For example, in natural English, the lexical term bark can refer to the sound a dog produces or to the skin of a tree. The interpretation of such ambiguous terms depends on the situational context and on the world knowledge of the listener. In order to be unambiguous, BML has been designed as a formal language. A formal language is the set of all sentences generated by a formal grammar. A formal grammar consists of a lexicon (the words of the language) and a set of rules (how to combine the words). In the case of BML, this grammar is the Command and Control Lexical Grammar (C2LG) [11]. To be more precise, the lexicon contains the attributes and values provided by the Joint Consultation Command and Control Information Exchange Data Model (JC3IEDM) (see http://www.mip-site. org or [12]). This set of rules has been developed based upon the doctrines of commanding and reporting, e.g., STANAG 2014, and incorporates the idea of the 5Ws (Who, What, Where, When, Why) for individual BML expressions. C. ROS We are running Robot Operating System (ROS) on the robots because it contains many useful capabilities and is the most widely used operating system for robots. ROS is developed and maintained by Willow Garage. It provides a centralized architecture with publish / subscribe semantics. A central instance, the ROSCore, provides lookup information about topics, services and nodes. Each node reports its register information and can receive information about other nodes. A node that subscribes to a topic requests connection information through ROSCore and connects directly to publisher node. In order to accomplish this, an agreed-upon

Chapter 3: <strong>Information</strong> <strong>Technology</strong> for Interoperability <strong>and</strong> Decision...<br />

307<br />

advices in a limited natural language <strong>and</strong> the agent plans corresponding actions.<br />

This is e.g., used by Myers [6].<br />

B. BML<br />

To express comm<strong>and</strong>s that are pushed from the user (C2 System) to the intelligent<br />

node on the lead robot <strong>and</strong> from there to the other robots we use Battle<br />

Management Language (BML) [7], because it is human readable, unambiguous,<br />

already used in military context, <strong>and</strong> in st<strong>and</strong>ardisation process of SISO. BML<br />

can be used to express orders, reports <strong>and</strong> requests between comm<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong> control<br />

systems (C2 systems), simulation systems <strong>and</strong> real units. In addition, BML also may<br />

be used to interact with robotic forces. Thus, it allows C2 systems <strong>and</strong> their users<br />

to interact with robot systems in the same way as with real units or units simulated<br />

in simulation systems. It is also possible to control robots with this language because<br />

it unambiguous <strong>and</strong> follows a formal grammar. We described in [8-9] how<br />

to control robots running our own middleware RoSe [10] by using BML.<br />

BML must be unambiguous to allow automatic processing. This unambiguousness<br />

is not self-evident for a language. For example, in natural English, the lexical<br />

term bark can refer to the sound a dog produces or to the skin of a tree. The interpretation<br />

of such ambiguous terms depends on the situational context <strong>and</strong> on<br />

the world knowledge of the listener.<br />

In order to be unambiguous, BML has been designed as a formal language.<br />

A formal language is the set of all sentences generated by a formal grammar. A formal<br />

grammar consists of a lexicon (the words of the language) <strong>and</strong> a set of rules<br />

(how to combine the words). In the case of BML, this grammar is the Comm<strong>and</strong><br />

<strong>and</strong> Control Lexical Grammar (C2LG) [11]. To be more precise, the lexicon contains<br />

the attributes <strong>and</strong> values provided by the Joint Consultation Comm<strong>and</strong> <strong>and</strong><br />

Control <strong>Information</strong> Exchange Data Model (JC3IEDM) (see http://www.mip-site.<br />

org or [12]). This set of rules has been developed based upon the doctrines of comm<strong>and</strong>ing<br />

<strong>and</strong> reporting, e.g., STANAG 2014, <strong>and</strong> incorporates the idea of the 5Ws<br />

(Who, What, Where, When, Why) for individual BML expressions.<br />

C. ROS<br />

We are running Robot Operating System (ROS) on the robots because it contains<br />

many useful capabilities <strong>and</strong> is the most widely used operating system for robots.<br />

ROS is developed <strong>and</strong> maintained by Willow Garage. It provides a centralized<br />

architecture with publish / subscribe semantics. A central instance, the ROSCore,<br />

provides lookup information about topics, services <strong>and</strong> nodes. Each node reports<br />

its register information <strong>and</strong> can receive information about other nodes. A node<br />

that subscribes to a topic requests connection information through ROSCore <strong>and</strong><br />

connects directly to publisher node. In order to accomplish this, an agreed-upon

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