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Virginia Tech

Design and Evaluation of a Mobile Instrumentation Platform for Unmanned Vehicle Testing

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Unmanned vehicle systems are becoming more important in the future of the military and in commercial applications. These systems are used to prevent humans from entering dangerous situations or to automate dull tasks. In order to facilitate rapid development of these systems, testing procedures and infrastructure need to be created. Once developed, the performance characteristics of unmanned vehicle systems can be determined and compared to similar systems. This information will be beneficial to system developers and potential customers. In order to provide the infrastructure and test procedures to the unmanned systems community, the Joint Robotics Program created the National Unmanned Systems Experimentation Environment (NUSE2). NUSE2 consists of a variety of military organizations and academic resources, including the Joint Unmanned Systems Test Experimentation and Research (JOUSTER) site at Virginia Tech. JOUSTER was tasked specifically with creating a mobile instrumentation platform capable of providing wireless communications, data collection, and video coverage of a testing site. This thesis presents the system designed and created to meet this need. For the first time, a mobile instrumentation platform has been created to specifically support unmanned systems research. Additionally, the performance characteristics of this system have been fully evaluated and will serve as a benchmark for future improvements to the system.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Science
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Mechanical Engineering
Department dc:contributor.department
Mechanical Engineering
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2006

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Gombar, Brett Anthony
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Reinholtz, Charles F.
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Wicks, Alfred L.
  • Hong, Dennis W.

Subjects

dc:subject × 4

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
etd-05222006-122128
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/33113

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Gombar, Brett Anthony. Design and Evaluation of a Mobile Instrumentation Platform for Unmanned Vehicle Testing. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2006. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/33113