Multi-Incident Response Vehicle (MIRV) (06-013)

Project Description: The VTTI project team led a collaborative effort with Neara Consulting Group to develop and integrate a Multi-Incident Response Vehicle (MIRV) into the Safely Operating Automated Driving Systems (SOADS) vehicle. The MIRV vehicle will be applied as one technical solution to how automated driving systems can be designed to interact safely with public safety in challenging scenarios. This project explored whether a MIRV can extend the perception of an ADS to beyond the vehicle by providing eyes on the ground for better situational awareness, deploy flares to secure a scene surrounding a driverless vehicle, and communicate with emergency, safety, and police personnel. The project’s primary goals were to accomplish the following: Autonomously deploy and recover the MIRV from the SOADS F-150 Truck; Autonomously deploy and recover non-incendiary LED road flares in spear or taper format based on the SOADS parked location; Develop an Eyes on the Ground solution via mobile application which will allow users to remotely pilot the MIRV and stream video and sensor data back to the user. The SOADS Robotic Operating System (ROS) will also be able to access the video and sensor streams from the MIRV platform. The projects secondary goals were to accomplish the following: Interact with on-road personnel by approaching and facilitating a 2-way audio communication back to a remote user; Act as a mobile warning beacon through an omnidirectional amber LED light atop the MIRV while deploying the non-incendiary LED road flares. The project is being closed as its current round of funding is coming to an end, and all primary goals were accomplished and all project deliverables collected. Further improvement to MIRV in a potential follow-on project is being explored to build on current functionality as well as fully accomplish the secondary goals. Both the initial demo at sub-contractor’s site and the final demo at VTTI of MIRV deploying non-incendiary flares, explored the question: Can a mobile rover unit be deployed to provide additional ADS capabilities outside the vehicle in challenging dynamic scenarios and interactions with public safety services? Data Scope: The dataset includes four videos from the initial demo at sub-contractor’s site on September 17, 2022. 2022_09_17_place_3 2022_09_17_place_5_left 2022_09_17_place_5_right 2022_09_17_place_7 The dataset includes three videos from the final demo at VTTI on December 17, 2022. 20221217_five_pilit_taper_demo 20221217_seven_pilit_spear_demo 20221217_three_pilit_taper_demo MIRV software repository: https://gitlab.vtti.vt.edu/public-projects/mirv MIRV Cloud API: This repository provides the source code for MIRV's Cloud Application to connect and exchange remote control requests, video stream, and health status with the MIRV Mobile Application. This solution is a docker image that can be run on a Kubernetes Cluster or similar Cloud deployment. MIRV Mobile Application: This repository provides the source code for the Tablet Application that allows communication with MIRV using WiFi or LTE/VPN link. The Mobile Application provides different features to check MIRV Sensor Health, Remote Control, Garage In/Out requests, and deployment on the field using specific layouts for the Pi-Lits. MIRV ROS: This repository provides the source code running on the MIRV itself, which is ROS based. The repository provides the ROS nodes/modules required to establish communication between the MIRV Cloud API and MIRV Mobile Application and the required Linux drivers and scripts to launch the system in the field. Data Specification: The demo videos are in mp4 format.