IMPLEMENTING A COMMON ARCHITECTURE FOR EOD ROBOTIC SYSTEMS

The Advanced Explosive Ordnance Disposal Robotic System (AEODRS) is a Navy-sponsored acquisition program developing a new generation of open, modular EOD robotic systems. In a previous paper, we described a common architecture for the AEODRS family of systems. The foundation of that architecture is the careful partitioning of an EOD robotic system into Capability Modules, and the definition of inter-module interfaces based on recognized and accepted open standards.

In this paper, we describe an implementation approach selected to demonstrate the architecture’s contribution to subsystem and payload interoperability. We further describe an approach to incremental integration of independently developed subsystems and payloads into a mixed simulation System Testbed, allowing independent assessment of each integrand’s compliance with the defined interfaces of the architecture. We also illustrate how this incremental approach enables the integration process to proceed with reduced dependence on the order in which the independently developed subsystems and payloads are delivered.