ADVANCED PERFORMANCE COMPUTING POWER FOR LARGE DATA SET PROCESSING

The real-world testing of robotic and autonomous vehicles faces many challenges including: safety; feasibility; effectiveness; expense; and timeliness. The development of high performance computing has created innumerable opportunities for effectively and efficiently processing large data sets. These data sets can range from modeling and simulation scenarios to the vast amounts of complex data being gathered by unmanned vehicles. In all cases, the data needs to be stored, managed, and processed to have usable information to drive smart decision making. Leveraging high performance computing to more efficiently, effectively, and economically conduct robotic and autonomous vehicle testing in a virtual environment is a logical step. Consequently, TARDEC has developed a real-time modeling and simulation capability to test and evaluate autonomy solutions while RAVE has designed and developed a specialized high performance computing system for TARDEC to support this capability. INTRODUCTION The advent of high performance computing (HPC) has changed the way that large data sets are handled, processed, and utilized. For the military, activities using HPC, such as modeling and simulation (M&S) analyses, robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) operation, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) data processing, continue to grow larger in scale and complexity. While M&S analyses and ISR data processing can be conducted on variable timelines, RAS operation requires real-time data processing and decision making. Throughout normal operations, RAS accumulate a large amount of sensor data and this needs to be processed quickly to allow for RAS decision making. Due to the large number of variables that can affect the RAS, all of the data must be treated with equal importance. This combination of factors can make mobility testing of RAS both difficult and time consuming, which is especially true of real-world testing. For mobility testing, the use of simulations is a valuable tool as the full range of scenarios can be explored faster and more economically than what can be accomplished through real-world testing. Use of HPC can enable these analyses to be conducted faster which allows researchers to run more simulations in a given set of time. Proceedings of the 2018 Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering and Technology Symposium (GVSETS) Advanced Performance Computing Power For Large Data Set Processing, Rosenberger, et al. – Page 2 of 13 . DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution unlimited. Additionally, M&S analyses are being tasked to consider a wider variety of scenarios. Increasing fidelity in M&S analyses require more detailed models accounting for more factors with each simulation requiring more processing time. To explore and quantify the value of virtual RAS testing, the United States Army (Army) Tank Automotive Research, Development, and Engineering Center (TARDEC) has developed a real-time M&S capability to simplify and streamline the testing process. RAVE Computer (RAVE), an industry expert in HPC, worked with TARDEC to design and develop a custom HPC system to support this capability. THE CHALLENGES OF REALWORLD RAS TESTING Before being fielded, Army RAS will need to be rigorously tested under representative operational conditions by soldiers in the unique environments where the RAS will operate. These environments will range from urban settings with improved roads to rural settings with unimproved roads, trails, and off-road and mountainous terrain. Testing RAS provides unique challenges with the additional automation and decision making being conducted. Real-world Testing Example As an example, the challenges of conducting RAS Leader Follower (LF) realworld testing include: safety; the testing facility; the testing equipment; and the cost and time required. All mobility testing of unproven technology is inherently unsafe and test and evaluation (T&E) teams and facilities take precautions to reduce the risk to manageable levels. These types of safety risks are compounded in RAS as there can be both hardware and software issues, and in some cases, the vehicle crash may even be the result of the way the software is designed. [1] Part of these safety challenges lie in the inability of the T&E team to control every variable. Because of these factors, conducting developmental testing on public roads involves unacceptable safety risks. Consequently, testing facilities are used and they provide their own challenges. These facilities are often limited in how many vehicles they can accommodate at any given time and they provide a limited selection of terrain types, weather conditions, traffic conditions, and vehicle event scenarios. Multiple facilities must be used to gain a reasonably inclusive data set and it will still be extremely difficult to explore all possible scenarios with any consistency. As many of these scenarios involve obstacles, there is potential of RAS damage every time the scenario is conducted, and a catastrophic failure can stop all testing, especially if multiple vehicles are affected. The type and amount of equipment required for the testing can also pose challenges. To begin with, each testing vehicle must be outfitted with the RAS sensor and processing package and a full instrumentation suite. It is difficult to process data in a moving vehicle so specialized equipment may be required. In a RAS LF scenario, multiple vehicles are required and so each must be outfitted with the full complement of testing equipment, not to mention the test drivers required in Proceedings of the 2018 Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering and Technology Symposium (GVSETS) Advanced Performance Computing Power For Large Data Set Processing, Rosenberger, et al. – Page 3 of 13 . DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT A. Approved for public release; distribution unlimited. each vehicle for safety. Spare vehicles will be required to account for any mechanical problems that arise during testing. To increase the rate of development, multiple different test convoys may be used and the required equipment and personnel scales