Research Summaries

Back Clandestine Mine Countermeasures Optimization for Autonomy and Risk Assessment

Fiscal Year 2022
Division Research & Sponsored Programs
Department Naval Research Program
Investigator(s) Kragelund, Sean P.
Kaminer, Isaac I.
Sponsor NPS Naval Research Program (Navy)
Summary The PRC and Russia are the greatest miners in the world and are prepared to employ mines to tilt the Great Power Competition (GPC) in their favor. Mines are inexpensive, easily deployed, and put Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) at high-risk. Countering mines within acceptable risk levels and mission timelines is required to support DMO operational requirements. Although the development and integration of autonomous vehicles should improve DMO, research and development of new tools for optimizing distributed search effort are required to minimize risk to the force. These tools must consider the constraints placed on mine countermeasures (MCM) by the challenges of GPC. Today's MCM systems, for example, rely on surface and airborne assets, with associated force protection burdens required to establish and maintain a permissive environment. In the future, naval forces must be prepared to operate in contested environments where overt operations are denied and supporting technologies (GPS, communications, etc.) are severely limited. Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) have potential to conduct clandestine MCM operations, but new approaches for conducting collaborative search with multiple AUVs are needed to fully realize their potential. Research is required to identify and assess new methods for conducting entirely clandestine MCM.
Keywords Autonomous Undersea Vehicle (AUV) MCM Mine Warfare Optimal Control Search and Detection Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV) mine countermeasures
Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal