Research Summaries

Back Intelligent Sensing for Autonomous Coordinated Maneuvers

Fiscal Year 2015
Division Research & Sponsored Programs
Department Consortium for Robotics & Unmanned Systems Education & Research
Investigator(s) Buettner, Jr., Raymond R.
Horner, Douglas P.
Sponsor Office of Naval Research (Navy)
Summary The operational objective of this research is to develop a concept whereby a USV equipped with forward-looking sonar and acoustic communications provides autonomous guidance to a team of low-cost AUVs. One relevant application for this concept is wide-area mine countermeasures (MCM) in which a USV commands a team of neutralizer AUVs to engage mine targets detected with its sonar. The USV then tracks the neutralizer vehicles relative to its sonar map of the underwater environment and provides navigational feedback to guide the AUVs into their objectives via an acoustic link. The Center for Autonomous Vehicle Research (CAVR) recently integrated an Autonomous Topographic Large Area Survey (ATLAS) sonar system onto its SeaFox Mk II USV, representing a significant investment by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Naval Warfare Development Command (NWDC) and the Undersea Warfare Research Center at NPS. The proposed technical effort will focus on experimentation with the ATLAS to characterize its performance in different environments, derive empirical sensor models for optimal search applications, and develop intelligent sensing algorithms to take advantage of this sonar's unique capabilities. This effort will leverage external funding, CAVR engineering development, and student contributions from FY14 to field a powerful new capability at minimal cost. This capability will support demonstration of the above operational concept during an NWDC MCM fleet experiment in FY15. Just as importantly, this new capability will complement ongoing CRUSER-sponsored student research at NPS.
Keywords
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