Control Architecture
The architecture plan for the SAUVIM platform has been developed with a heavy emphasis to autonomy and global information sharing.
SAUVIM uses a precise role separation between high-level (or mission control) and low-level (or vehicle control). This separation has been implemented with a dedicated software environment for autonomous systems. The mission control system is a software-emulated CPU that runs a custom programming language (SPL, Sauvim Programming Language) specially created in order to simplify high-level operation and algebraic manipulations at the same time.
Since it is a software-emulated CPU, it can be compiled within the main vehicle computer while still maintaining the virtual separation between the mission control and the vehicle control [front-seat]. The hardware resides within an abstraction layer, and the entire language can be easily re-adapted to a different hardware layer, given a precise and standard specification for the interface procedures.
The following diagram shows this concept implemented for the vehicle navigation system.
The computing architecture for the navigation controller is hosted on a VME-based system, with VxWorks operating system. Other distributed modules (such as the sensor server) run on PC104 systems.