Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology (MAST) Final Annual Report for Program Capstone

Abstract : The vision of the Micro Autonomous Systems and Technology (MAST) program is to enhance tactical situational awareness in urban and complex terrain by enabling the autonomous operation of a collaborative ensemble of multifunctional, mobile microsystems through collaborative and multidisciplinary research. The MAST consortium is working toward creating systems of diverse autonomous mobility platforms equipped with miniature sensors to quickly, quietly, and reliably explore and find targets in the MAST scenarios. These platforms will exploit size (tradeoffs between payload, minimum exploitable opening, speed, range, and duration), diversity of locomotion (flight and ambulation), multiple units (redundancy, communication network, observation angles), and diversity of sensing (passive and active, local and long range). The thought of the MAST consortium is that a diverse combination of mobile platforms can perform the MAST scenario search tasks withlow cost and high probability of success. As part of diversity, size is exploited as smaller platforms can more easily and quietly access small spaces and climb obstacles, and cover a larger area using parallel searches.