Thesis advisors, Gordon Schacher, Donald P. Brutzman

Thesis (M.S. in Applied Physics)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 1997

Includes bibliographical references (p. 165)

NPS Combat Systems students learn about robots and autonomous weapons during group design projects in the SE 3015 course sequence. This sequence is designed to provide experience in combat systems development. The capstone project is the Robot Wars Competition, where pairs of student- designed autonomous robots battle each other. This thesis extends this competition into the arena of simulation and modeling. Our motivation is to further students' understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of computer modeling and simulation in combat systems design and testing. This thesis creates a simulation foundation of the Robot Wars Competition. The simulation has been designed in two main parts, a C++ program that manipulates the Simbots on the playing field and generates data files of their movements, and a 3D graphical visualization that allows the user to see the Simbots in action. The C++ program uses a Simbot class to instantiate two Simbots which are composed of three basic components: base, optics and weapons. The graphics portion uses data files created in the main simulation and displays in 3D animation. The simulation correctly replicates the logical and physical aspects of the robot competition. Future research on the physical aspects of the component parts and the graphics package can be integrated with this foundation

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