Enabling a dialog – A C2I infrastructure for unmanned vehicles and sensors

Operation of networks of heterogeneous vehicles and sensors imposes many technical and operational challenges. Simultaneous control of multiple vehicle types requires abstraction any device-specific details and to keep human operators in the loop by providing them a good overall picture of the current system state. In this paper, we present the Neptus command and control infrastructure for such operations, in terms of its evolution and current-day architecture. Neptus supports the various phases of vehicle and sensor operations abstracting vehicle and sensor specificities by considering vehicles as maneuver providers and using open standards for communication and data storage. Operators are kept in the loop by using adaptable interfaces which can be tailored to specific operators, vehicles or mission scenarios. Neptus has been used numerous times for field-testing unmanned vehicles and in several demonstrations of multi-vehicle operations.