Mobile Detection Assessment and Response System (1989-)

The Mobile Detection Assessment and Response System (MDARS) is a joint Army-Navy development effort to provide an automated intrusion detection and inventory assessment capability for use in DoD warehouses and storage sites. The program is managed by the Office of Product Manager - Force Protection Systems (PM-FPS) at Ft. Belvoir, VA. Overall technical direction for the program is provided by the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, San Diego (SSC San Diego).

The MDARS goal is to provide multiple mobile platforms that perform random patrols within assigned areas of warehouses and storage sites. The patrolling platforms:

• detect anomalous conditions such as flooding or fires,
• detect intruders, and
• determine the status of inventoried items through the use of specialized RF transponder tags.

Separate development efforts target warehouse interiors and outdoor storage areas. Initiated in 1988, the MDARS-Interior program utilizes the K3A Navmaster mobility base developed by Cybermotion, Inc., of Roanoke, VA, equipped with additional collision avoidance, intruder assessment, and product inventory subsystems by General Dynamics Robotics Systems (GDRS) of Westminster, MD. A Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) contract was awarded to Cybermotion in 1995 to develop a significantly improved intruder detection sensor package with an integrated camera pan-and-tilt mechanism. Simultaneous control of two robots patrolling nightly within an interior warehouse environment was demonstrated for over two years at a beta-test facility at Camp Elliott in San Diego, CA. Two additional robots were operational for almost a year in an Early User Appraisal installation within a Defense Logistics Agency warehouse at Anniston Army Depot in Alabama. The MDARS-Interior Engineering Manufacturing Development contract was awarded to GDRS in 1998. In May-July 2001 the system underwent a successful Limited User Test at the Defense Distribution Depot, Susquehanna, PA.

The MDARS-Exterior Program extends the robotic security and inventory control concepts of the Interior program into the realm of semi-structured outdoor environments (i.e., improved roads, defined fence lines, and standardized storage layouts) such as storage yards, dock facilities, and airfields. Inventory control will consist of verifying the contents of closed structures (i.e., warehouses, bunkers, igloos) without the need for opening, as well as inventory of items that are stored outside of structures (planes, HMMWVs, etc).

The Exterior Program, initiated in 1993, awarded a BAA contract for the development of the outdoor mobility platforms to Robotic Systems Technology (RST, now GDRS), Westminster, MD. The mobility base is a rugged four-wheel hydrostatic-drive diesel-powered vehicle equipped with active-laser, ultrasonic-sonar, millimeter-wave-radar, and stereo-vision sensors for collision avoidance. A formal demonstration of autonomous navigation along straight-line path segments under differential GPS control was conducted at the contractor's facilities in October 1996. Automatic collision avoidance and limited intruder sensing (using image-stabilized video motion detection) was demonstrated in September 1997 at the DoD Force Protection Equipment Demonstration held at the Marine Corps Air Station in Quantico, VA. Additional efforts will focus on autonomous transit of non-linear path segments and fully integrated intrusion detection employing both video and Doppler radar. Two BAA prototypes underwent a successful Technical Feasibility Testing in May 2000. A System Development and Demonstration contract was awarded to GDRS in January 2002. An Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (IOT&E) is scheduled to be conducted at Anniston Army Depot, AL in FY06.

The design of the MDARS system is driven by a number of characteristics of the application domain:

• MDARS must function as a key component of a complete security system that also includes fixed detection capabilities and human security guards;
• the patrol coverage of a large number (expandable up to 255) of mobile robotic platforms must be controlled and coordinated to minimize opportunities for undetected intrusion, even by insiders;
• both the interior warehouse and exterior storage site environments require navigational capabilities intermediate between those of an unknown and dynamic environment (e.g., battlefield) on the one hand and a completely structured and static environment (e.g., hospital corridors) on the other.

What is important about the "semi-structured" nature of the MDARS operating areas in terms of implications for the system design are the following:

• the robot operating area is mappable because the positions of the principal features of navigational interest (e.g., roads, bunkers, walls, corridors, and storage bins) are known in advance and change relatively infrequently;
• the major sensory characteristics of these features can be characterized and in some cases be tuned to facilitate detection and classification by the robot's sensors (e.g., by installation of reflective stripe markers);
• many variable features of the environment represent either features of interest to the mission (e.g., intruder, missing storage container, flooded floor) or "friendlies" whose cooperative behavior can be relied on (e.g., to stay on the right hand side of the road, to get out of the way eventually).

The significance of novel features ("exceptional events") sensed by the robots must be assessed by the MDARS system, relying strictly on robotic sensors when possible and invoking the assistance of the human operator when necessary. When automated assessment indicates that a valid threat condition exists, the appropriate response must be invoked. Nonthreatening events must also be handled, with minimal involvement of the human operator (e.g., autonomously navigate around a parked vehicle or other obstacle).

At the highest level of system description, the two areas of the MDARS system design which particularly reflect the requirements of the MDARS application are

• the distribution of processing functionality, especially navigational planning; and
• the choice of sensors and control algorithms to support vehicle navigation in the semi-structured MDARS environments.

Currently SSC San Diego is conducting exploratory development efforts to expand MDARS-E force protection capability. These include the addition of a non-lethal gun pod on the exterior vehicle and marsupial carriers that can deploy smaller tracked robots and vertical-takeoff-and-landing unmanned aerial vehicles to provide closeup investigation of off-path incidents.

Movie clip:

MDARS-Interior patrolling a warehouse and performing automatic recharging (5.4 MB)

For further information, please go to the following publications:

• R.S. Inderieden, et al., "Overview of the Mobile Detection Assessment and Response System," DND/CSA Robotics and KBS Workshop, St. Hubert, Quebec, October 1995.
• J. M. Holland, et al., "MDARS Interior Platform," Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems, 22nd Annual Symposium and Exhibition (AUVS '95), Washington, D.C., 10-12 July, 1995.
• Everett, H.R., Laird, R.T., Carroll, D.M., Gilbreath, G., Heath-Pastore, T.A., Inderieden, R.S., Tran, T., Grant, K., and D.M. Jaffee, "Multiple Resource Host Architecture (MRHA) for the Mobile Detection Assessment Response System (MDARS)," Technical Document 3026, Revision A, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, San Diego, CA, September 2000. [PDF (1598 KB)]
• R. P. Smurlo, et al., "MDARS Product Assessment System," Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems, 22nd Annual Symposium and Exhibition (AUVS '95), Washington, D.C., 10-12 July, 1995.
• Laird, R.T, H.R. Everett, G.A. Gilbreath, R.S. Inderieden, and K.J. Grant, "Early User Appraisal of the MDARS Interior Robot," American Nuclear Society 8th International Topical Meeting on Robotics and Remote Systems (ANS'99), Pittsburgh, PA, 25-29 April, 1999. [PDF (1106 KB)]
• Heath-Pastore, T., H.R. Everett, and K. Bonner, "Mobile Robots for Outdoor Security Applications," American Nuclear Society 8th International Topical Meeting on Robotics and Remote Systems (ANS'99), Pittsburgh, PA, 25-29 April, 1999. [PDF (405 KB)]
• Everett, H.R. and D.W. Gage, "From Laboratory to Warehouse: Security Robots Meet the Real World," International Journal of Robotics Research, Special Issue on Field and Service Robotics, volume 18, number 7, July 1999, pp 760-768. [PDF (1884 KB)]
• Carroll, D., Gilbreath, G.A., and H.R. Everett, "Extending Mobile Security Robots to Force Protection Missions," AUVSI Unmanned Systems 2002, Lake Buena Vista, FL, July 9-11, 2002. [PDF (928 KB)]

To view more MDARS-related images, go to our Robotics Images Archive's Autonomous Robots section.

Robotics at Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, San Diego
SSC San Diego Adaptive Systems Branch

Please address all questions/comments to: robo-web@spawar.navy.mil.

Last update: 22 October 2003.