Rapid Prototyping of Parallel Robot Vision Systems Using Virtual Reality and Systems Simulation

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9401142 LeBlanc This award provides support for the establishment of a laboratory that uses two types of simulation technologies in the design of visually controlled robotics systems. The first type of simulation technology is the simulation of sensory interaction with physical environments, popularly known as "virtual reality". Virtual reality can replace the real world in testing and debugging a system. The second is execution-driven simulation of complex parallel algorithms at the level of individual messages and memory accesses, which can address the performance and low-level real-time problems of interacting processes. The experimental facilities requested include a Silicon Graphics Reality (SGI) Engine for scene generation in the simulated world, an upgrade of an existing SGI Challenge multiprocessor for simulation of the virtual world and control software, a computational engine for performing real-time intermediate to high-level vision, a hydraulic robot arm for real-time manipulation, a small-scale multi-processor for device control and medium-level vision, and general purpose workstations. The focus of the proposal is the development of simulations to aid in the development of real-world robotic systems. Research topics to be explored include the development of principles for constructing complex physical autonomous systems; the development of new modes of simulation for virtual reality, and simulation and implementation of robotic control algorithms.