Cooperative target localization using heterogeneous unmanned ground and aerial vehicles

This paper describes our on-going efforts toward developing heterogeneous, cooperative systems technologies. In particular, we present the role of unmanned mobile ground systems (robots) in a heterogeneous sensor network, consisting of two unmanned aircraft, a mobile ground robot, and a set of four stationary ground sensors, performing an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) mission. The unmanned mobile ground robot is equipped with an infrared (IR) sensor, the aircraft and the stationary ground sensors use optical cameras and radio frequency (RF) detectors, respectively. The primary responsibility of the mobile ground robot is to verify the identity of a target based on its IR signature. In addition, the mobile ground robot also assists with the sensor network's overall target localization estimation efforts by sharing its IR sensor-based target location measurements with members of the sensor network. Our analysis and field experiments demonstrated scalability and effectiveness of our approach.