MACE - MIRA Autonomous Control Engineering

MIRA's Innovative Autonomous Vehicle Platform

MIRA Autonomous Control Engineering, MACE, is our autonomous vehicle development platform developed in-house to enable us to trial and demonstrate sophisticated sensors and control system algorithms.

MACE is a high-endurance, fully autonomous, all-terrain platform.  It boasts a rugged 4 wheel drive, 4 wheel steer chassis, with a series hybrid powertrain that can carry (and power) a 300Kg payload.

Designed  as platform for our engineers to trial and demonstrate our autonomous vehicle (AV) design capabilities; MACE's Mission planning capabilities are broken down into 2 main areas, namely patrol and scouting.  Whilst ‘scouting’ MACE's terrain classification function allows it to relay both topological features and more changeable attributes such as the condition of the ground (hard/easy going) back to mission commanders.  This is vital information that it is not possible to recover reliably from aerial surveillance.

A particularly novel feature is MACE’s intelligent power management system.  The vehicle learns how much energy it requires to travel between two points.  It then uses this data to project the amount of energy required to perform a given task.  Later MACE compares the actual energy used with its own projections.  This information can then be communicated to other similar machines for local tactical benefits.

In addition to scouting missions, MACE can be set the objective to patrol an area.  This area may be broken into areas of high and low risk, with waypoints overlaid for the vehicle to try and cover, if conditions allow. In high risk locations where quiet operation is desirable, MACE can switch off its IC engine to ensure its position is not easily revealed.  It will plan an effective route considering all the permutations including: the state of the ground, any desirable waypoints, the energy required to complete the route and the impact any quiet running has on battery state of charge.

MACE has been demonstrated to the MOD as part of MIRA's bid to be included in their forthcoming “Grand Challenge” – Lord Grayson’s high-profile head to head competition for AV’s with the finals to be held at Copehill Down in 2008.

See MACE in action in our video gallery:

Video Gallery : MACE Autonomous Vehicle