Proposal 3 Goby IvP

MOOS-IvP is a useful and well tested autonomy engine for applications in the MOOS middleware. While initially, we can use it by connecting pHelmIvP and the MOOSDB with the goby_moos_gateway application, in the long run it would be beneficial to have a fully integrated Helm Engine running in Goby3.

Possible paths to follow:

• Be able to run behaviors at any level (interthread, interprocess, even intervehicle?) and report back to the Helm Engine when possible. Helm can have timeouts on behaviors and reuse the objective functions until a new one arrives or the timeout expires.

Challenges:

• Many useful behaviors in lib_behaviors-marine and elsewhere that directly consume MOOS variable. So we will still need a CMOOSMsg translator, or revisit directly handling CMOOSMsg in Goby3. We have some of this already in moos_translators for Protocol Buffers to CMOOSMsg translation..
• Upstream buy-in will likely be important for success.

Other thoughts:

• Research alternatives? Something with a better probabilistic framework for defining competing objectives?