Mission modeling planning, and execution module (M2PEM) systems and methods

A system, comprising:

• a plurality of unmanned vehicles, each of said plurality of unmanned vehicles having a local controller that uses robot operating system (ROS) language to operate the robot;
• a control station having a graphical user interface (GUI), wherein the graphical user interface allows user decisions of an activity by said plurality of unmanned vehicles by allowing an end user to select the activity through a pop up alert inset;
• said control station further having a translator for translating said activity into said mission ROS description;
• and
• said control station further having an execution engine for transmitting said mission ROS descriptions to said local controllers;
• wherein said control station can stop the execution engine, allow new BPMN elements to be added to the system, and start the execution engine after the new BPMN elements are added to the system.

A method for accomplishing a mission using a plurality of unmanned vehicles, said method comprising the steps of:

• A) graphically describing mission tasks at a graphical user interface (GUI) using Business Process Model Notation (BPMN) systems, wherein the graphical user interface allows user decisions of an activity by allowing an end user to select the activity through a pop up alert inset, thereby directly interacting with plurality of unmanned vehicles;
• B) translating the graphical description from said step A) into formatted robot operating system (ROS) instructions which can be input into each of said plurality of unmanned vehicles;
• and
• C) transmitting the ROS instructions to said plurality of unmanned vehicles;
• D) executing the mission by said plurality of robots according to the ROS instructions, wherein, at any time during executing the mission, the mission is stopped using a Multi-Operator Control Unit (MOCU) via a user task, new BPMN elements are added, and a new mission is started using the MOCU;
• said graphical description step being accomplished by the end user.