Currently fielded robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) were developed for singular needs in response to rapidly evolving operational requirements. This has resulted in a collection of proprietary systems that seldom interoperate and are not easily scalable or adaptable. Such systems are expensive to maintain and service as they share very few if any common hardware components or common software modules. Additionally, they offer little or no autonomous capabilities as the lack of an interoperability framework has hampered the ability to transition the results of numerous, successful S&T ground vehicle autonomy efforts to a Program of Record (PoR). As the technology continues to mature and the use of RAS and UGSs continues to grow, these issues will be compounded unless the Department of Defense (DoD) makes a concerted effort to develop and effect interoperability frameworks and software re-use. Accordingly, the DoD is interested in determining whether and how it might implement a standardized, baseline autonomous systems development environment, or “ecosystem”, to address these issues and significantly reduce the stagnation and recreation of redundant capabilities across the DoD enterprise.
