2022 MRC-ARL Summer Student Team Research Experience: Air-Deployed Robots for Mobile Sensing

Author(s):

Sean Gart, Mark Bundy, Raymond Vonwahlde, Kasthuri Jayarajah, Kevin Rippy, Fouad Ayoub, Jason Chen, Haonan Zhuang, Ziri Nzeako, Sultana Muntaha, Kamsiyochi Nwaiwu, William Mackinnon, Saipraneeth Mukku, Mumu Xu, David Aderinwale, Belinda Lin, Jared Scheffler, Daniel Zhu, Michelle Zheng, Sukriti Roy, Jack Mirenzi, Brian Amaya, Daniel Hu, Huan Xu, and Derek Paley

Abstract:

The MRC-ARL Summer Student Team Research Experience, a joint effort of the Maryland Robotics Center (MRC) and the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) Army Research Laboratory (ARL), engaged 20 undergraduate students from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the University of Maryland, College Park. Their mission centered on the conception and construction of a system for the airdrop deployment of a ground-based robot. This was motivated by the quest for safer, more efficient alternatives to current methods of delivering critical supplies and personnel in high-risk scenarios, reducing both danger and resource intensiveness. Over the course of an 8-week program, the students focused on creating an impact energy mitigation system and developing algorithms to facilitate ground navigation post-impact. Their collective efforts culminated in a final, real-world test scenario at ARL’s Robotics Research Collaboration Campus. Here, robots were dropped from a 12-m building. Although the students’ demonstrated solutions were only partially successful, they learned valuable lessons on teamwork and project management and set the stage for future advances in air-dropped robotic systems.