| Summary: | The Naval Postgraduate School's Small Robotic Technology (SMART) Initiative is an ongoing research effort within the Combat Systems Science and Technology Curriculum that engages in forward-looking applications of small robotic technology for military employment. The immediate goal of which is to develop a multipurpose robotic platform that is capable of hosting varied sensor packages for military research. This thesis successfully accomplished initial background research and integration of a low cost, lightweight, all-terrain, robotic vehicle to fulfill this requirement. The areas of robotic investigation included: research and procurement of a Foster Miller Lemming tracked vehicle; the selection of a robust, network enabled, real-time microcontroller called the ipEngine; selection of Differential GPS as a highly accurate autonomous vehicle positioning technique; and the development of the ipEngine software environment for integration and testing of the microcontroller's wireless interfacing. Wireless communication tests using TCP/IP sockets, serial communication, telnet and a common Internet Web Browser validated the ability to remotely 6perate the vehicle under both direct and autonomous rtontrol. Ultimately, this thesis laid the foundation for follow-on NPS students to research and integrate varied robotic sensing techniques, including synthetic array seismic sonar's and chemical detection devices, and to participate in cooperative research with other military laboratories.
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