SARA sprint cycle #2 is focused on autonomous complex terrain maneuver for ground vehicles.

The awardees for Sprint #1 are listed on the SARA CRA Overview page under the heading “Awards to academia and industry”.

Recipients are expected to perform development, integration, and experimentation on their own local testbed platform, which does not have to be a Warthog UGV. Experimentation events at Graces Quarters and other ARL venues, as necessary, will take place on an ARL Warthog UGV. It is not a requirement for Recipients to match the ARL hardware stack such as power, compute, sensing, and network hardware, on their own testbed platform but research plan should address a pathway for transition of research solutions onto the ARL testbed.

ARL researchers will test algorithms on local, ARL-owned UGV platforms. ARL UGV platforms will not be loaned out or otherwise made available for Recipients to work on at their own places of performance. Recipients are expected to perform development, integration, and experimentation on their own local testbed platform.

Within reason, it is acceptable for a proposing team to include a base robotic platform, sensor, and/or computer suite, specifically for this effort, in their program cost estimate.

We do not know ahead of time the number of awards that will be made. The number of awards depends on the quality, number of proposals, and cost of proposals that come in.

It depends on the type of capability being proposed to add to the autonomy stack. Experimentation will primarily occur under circumstances where there is limited or no information about the environment ahead of time. Proposers should clearly identify the assumptions required for their contributions to the system.

As mentioned in the webinar, the simulation environment is an active, living capability that will be available and is modifiable by Recipients. Environment models, platform models, sensor models, and new feature implementation are all eligible areas of contribution during execution of the Sprint 2 base period. All modifications and new features will be done in coordination with ARL.

No, not at this time.

There is not a typical or target award amount. In Sprint 1, Awards ranged from roughly $100K to over $700K, dependent on the level of effort proposed, material, equipment, and type and quantity of personnel, among other factors.

The focus of Sprint 2 is not solely on perception. We are interested in end-to-end performance in the described scenarios. Proposing teams may address any part of the ARL Autonomy Stack.

No. In order to access the ARL Autonomy Stack, or the Unity simulation environment, an active agreement (e.g., Award, Contract, Grant, etc.) must be in place.

Yes, the webinar slides will be posted to the ARL SARA website.

We do not have a description of the stack’s current capabilities, gaps, and improvement priorities, other than what is in available in the Funding Opportunity Announcement and presented in the webinar slides.

A ROS topic with poses and radius will be sent in a transform library (TF) frame that is known by the robot.

The platform reports left and right drive current, voltage and velocity as well as main battery voltage and current status. RPM is not explicitly published but can be determined.

There are no suspension travel sensors on the platform currently. The base platform and hardware stack envisioned for use in May 2021, October 2021, and April 2022 operations is as-described in the Sprint 2 Webinar slides and in the FOA. Throughout the Sprint 2 base period of performance, ARL expects to work closely with Recipients to address any approach-specific modifications as necessary. If modification is required to the base platform or the hardware stack in support of a proposed research effort, then the SARA collaborator will provide an overview of the modifications in their proposal. It is expected that Recipients will fund all hardware and software development, fabrication, and integration on their own local testbed, and will collaborate with ARL to ensure ARL receives hardware designs and software/drivers required to run additional or modified sensors on the ARL robotic testbed platform.

The base platform and hardware stack envisioned for use in May 2021, October 2021, and April 2022 operations is as-described in the Sprint 2 Webinar slides and in the FOA. Throughout the Sprint 2 base period of performance, ARL expects to work closely with Recipients to address any approach-specific modifications as necessary. If modification is required to the base platform or the hardware stack in support of a proposed research effort, then the SARA collaborator will provide an overview of the modifications in their proposal. It is expected that Recipients will fund all hardware and software development, fabrication, and integration on their own local testbed, and will collaborate with ARL to ensure ARL receives hardware designs and software/drivers required to run additional or modified sensors on the ARL robotic testbed platform.

ARL is in the process of upgrading the Ouster ROS package in the ARL Autonomy Stack. ARL does not have additional insight into the Ouster development timeline.

Yes. Currently supported reconfigurable parameters are roughly the same as those shown here: https://github.com/ros-drivers/flir_camera_driver/blob/kinetic-devel/spinnaker_camera_driver/cfg/Spinnaker.cfg

The focal length on the camera lenses will be secured during robot movement. Changing focal lengths of cameras impacts the sensor intrinsic, and system-wide extrinsic, calibration. Therefore, Recipients will have the option to request focal length changes but since this request impacts other components as well as cross-platform reproducibility, a decision will take this and other factors into consideration (e.g., impact to functionality such as refocusing, impact to operations such as time and ability to recalibrate, etc.)

ARL can work with Recipients to come up with a temporary form/fit/function solution to be implemented in the field, as long as it does not interfere with the LiDAR or any other sensors.

The FLIR Blackfly S cameras on the ARL robotic testbed have the internal IR cut filter intact. If Recipients desire to modify the setup, for example using external IR cut filters and/or IR bandpass filters, then a reason, cost estimate, and description of manufacturer/model need to be included in the proposal. Overall, if modification is required to the base platform or the hardware stack in support of a proposed research effort, then the SARA collaborator will provide an overview of the modifications in their proposal. It is expected that Recipients will fund all hardware and software development, fabrication, and integration on their own local testbed, and will collaborate with ARL to ensure ARL receives hardware designs and software/drivers required to run additional or modified sensors on the ARL robotic testbed platform.

Chapter 1 of the proposal is where one describes their initial, or base period (also known as “seedling”) effort. Chapter 2 of the proposal is where one describes optional future follow-on work, which would begin after the conclusion of the base period, at the discretion of the Government. If one chooses to include a description of optional future follow-on work, then the time horizon for this work is up to 3 years beyond the conclusion of the base period. Please refer to the table titled “Anticipated Core Funding Cycles” on page 13 of 31 of the FOA for a depiction of the relationship between base period and option period.

The base period of Sprint 2 is expected to run for 12 months after receipt of award. Please refer to the “Proposal Intent” paragraph beginning on page 10 of 31 of the FOA, as well as the table titled “Anticipated Core Funding Cycles” on page 13 of 31 of the FOA.

The base platform and hardware stack envisioned for use in May 2021, October 2021, and April 2022 operations is as-described in the Sprint 2 Webinar slides and in the FOA. Throughout the Sprint 2 base period of performance, ARL expects to work closely with Recipients to address any approach-specific modifications as necessary. If modification is required to the base platform or the hardware stack in support of a proposed research effort, then the SARA collaborator will provide an overview of the modifications in their proposal. It is expected that Recipients will fund all hardware and software development, fabrication, and integration on their own local testbed, and will collaborate with ARL to ensure ARL receives hardware designs and software/drivers required to run additional or modified sensors on the ARL robotic testbed platform.

Currently, multi-modal fusion occurs at the costmap level; different pipelines produce custom costmap layers and those are used for navigation. This is in active development and performers should not consider themselves beholden to this framework. Our long-term goal involves tighter integration with the mapping pipeline via our message stream architecture.