Research Summaries

Back Unmanned Surface Logistics Concept of Support

Fiscal Year 2019
Division Research & Sponsored Programs
Department NPS Naval Research Program
Investigator(s) MacKinnon, Douglas J.
Sponsor NPS Naval Research Program (Navy)
Summary We seek to extend our modeling efforts to include both unmanned and manned vessels to help develop an improved Concept of Operations employment of available assets to maintain fleet level logistic support. This research will examine how traditional logistics may be improved through the novel use of planned unmanned systems. Through this top-down (stated requirements) and bottom-up (available and planned assets) approach, we seek to answer the following questions:

RQ1: How might we develop and demonstrate a workable concept of logistics to support the combination of manned and unmanned surface vessels?
RQ2: How can we develop essential mission logistics tasks that will provide manned and unmanned systems agility and survivability?
RQ3: How can we develop a concept of support for manned and unmanned surface systems in a communications challenged environment?

To accomplish this analysis, we plan to gather specification data on known supply chain requirements to ensure those are met. We then intend to learn about all available manned and unmanned assets capable of delivering logistics support to the fleet. We will then develop an event-based, simulation model using LITMUS, to first allow us to demonstrate ground truth. Assets will be added to detailed modeling extensions to show potential alternatives to supplying the fleet. This analysis will be followed by considering how policy might be altered and improved through novel approaches, leveraging all available assets plus those that may soon become available to the fleet (unmanned, floating fuel cells, USVs etc.). This simulation may also become a real-time decision tool available to commanders who desire an original and dynamic approach to mitigate enemy disruption to our supply chain.

Our efforts will result in a technical report or thesis that will explore and explain the state of the art of Navy logistics and point the way forward using mix of all available and planned assets – both manned and unmanned.
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