Past TechCons

Materials from past TechCons (2017 forward) are archived in Calhoun through the NPS Dudley Knox Library.

TechCon 2019
NPS CRUSER held its eighth annual Technical Continuum (TechCon) on 17 April 2019 in the NPS Mechanical Engineering Auditorium.  CRUSER's annual NPS TechCon provides the greater CRUSER Community of Interest an opportunity to gather and explore research topics of mutual interest. Responding to SECNAV direction, TechCon 2019 focused specifically on how NPS researchers might work more successfully with industry.

TechCon 2018
NPS CRUSER held its seventh annual Technical Continuum (TechCon) on 17 and 18 April 2018 in the NPS Mechanical Engineering Auditorium.  CRUSER's annual NPS TechCon provides NPS Faculty and technical members of the greater CRUSER Community of Interest an opportunity to explore selected concepts in support of our Innovation Thread - "Developing Autonomy to Strengthen Naval Power." TechCon 2018 included results from recent field experimentation, and proposals for new work related to concepts of interest generated during the 18-21 September 2017 Warfare Innovation Continuum (WIC) workshop in three primary topics areas: 1) autonomy in support of operations and logistics, 2) human-machine teaming, and 3) organizational change and adoption.

TechCon 2017
NPS CRUSER held its sixth annual Technical Continuum (TechCon) on 11 and 12 April 2017.  CRUSER's annual NPS TechCon provides NPS Faculty and technical members of the greater CRUSER Community of Interest an opportunity to explore selected concepts in support of our Innovation Thread - "Developing Autonomy to Strengthen Naval Power." All technical members of the CRUSER community of interest were invited to submit an abstract in any of the following topic areas: 1) littoral mesh networking and remote sensing, 2) innovative undersea warfare, and 3) autonomous USV missions.

TechCon 2016 Program and Abstracts

CRUSER's annual NPS TechCon provides NPS Faculty an opportunity to explore selected concepts in support of our Innovation Thread - "Creating Asymmetric Warfighting Advantages." The selected concepts were. Although the concepts generated during the September 2015 Warfare Innovation Workshop were highlighted, presentations spanned topics related to any active Innovation Thread. These 15 minute TechCon presentations were designed to allow faculty to showcase how they might take one of these selected concepts to experimentation, or to share findings for other CRUSER seeded work.

TechCon 2015
CRUSER's annual technical gathering explored work related to concepts generated during the September 2014 Warfare Innovation Workshop "Warfighting in the Contested Littorals." These topics fell into six general areas of interest: 1) unconventional unmanned systems applications, 2) marsupial robotics, 3) deployable sensor networks in A2AD environments, 4) leveraging natural systems, 5) unmitigated risks of dependence on unmanned systems in contested environments, and 6) tactical and operational employment of additive manufacturing. There were also a handful of eclectic concepts that were also of interest such as seafloor charging mats, EMP force fields, and a station-keeping tether.

TechCon 2014
CRUSER's third annual technical gathering was held out in a tent on Spruance Plaza on 8 and 9 April 2014, and provided NPS students and faculty an opportunity to explore selected concepts in support of the topics of interest in the "Distributing Future Naval Air and Surface Forces" Innovation Thread, and was held as part of National Robotics Week. TechCon 2014 concluded with the CRUSER Research Fair "Robots in the Roses" on 10 April 2014 in the NPS Rose Garden.

TechCon 2013
NPS CRUSER held its second annual Technical Continuum (TechCon) from 9 – 11 April 2013.  This event was for NPS students and faculty interested in education, experimentation and research related to employing unmanned systems in operational environments. TechCon 2013 was intended to further concepts developed during the September 2012 Warfare Innovation Workshop and showcase NPS student and faculty work in advancing undersea operations capabilities.  Seven distinct concepts were selected from those presented at the September 2012 Warfare Innovation Workshop, but they are broad enough to include a host of specific research questions.  For example, non-lethal stopping concepts using a hardening gel that block ship board heat exchangers when ingested from under the hull.  Exemplar topics like this support both material science (can we create such a gel?) to legal and ethical questions.

TechCon 2012
Scheduled in conjunction with Tenth International Mine Warfare Symposium in Monterey, the CRUSER Technology Continuum (TechCon) "Unmanned Systems – The Way Ahead" was designed to be a follow-on to the CRUSER Warfare Innovation Workshop in September 2011. The combined event was sponsored by NPS, ONR, the Program Executive Office, Littoral Combat Ships, OPNAV (N85), and CRUSER. CRUSER invited industry and Navy labs to demonstrate the technical capabilities related to the selected concepts in this three day CRUSER Technology Continuum. Presenters will then be invited to participate in a field experimentation of selected UxS technologies planned for FY13. This full process fulfills the second tenet of CRUSER – from concept generation to experimentation.