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Navy automates Mission Packages

NAVSEA News Wire

Release Date: 3/19/2004

By Dan Broadstreet, NSWC-Dahlgren, Panama City, Public Affairs

Panama City, Fla.--Arriving at specific GPS coordinates initiates a series of robotic tasks inside a U.S. Navy "Smart Container" carried by a U.S. Air Force C-130 cargo plane. Sandbags are automatically conveyed toward and ejected from the aft of the plane and parachuted downward where relief work is underway at a flooded Mississippi basin - a scenario of fast and efficient unmanned and automated Navy equipment performing disaster relief.

Naval Surface Warfare Center-Panama City's Head of Unmanned Systems Office, Mr. Helmut Portmann, and Head of Net Assessment Office, Dr. Elan Moritz, are turning the Standard Smart Container unmanned system concept into a reality.

Portmann and Moritz developed the concept of retrofitting an ISO (International Standards for Organizations) container with the necessary robotics and machinery to automate packaging, handling, and dispensing of military ordnance, materials, and supplies. Such automation could significantly reduce handling and delivery time supplies needed for military, homeland defense, disaster relief, and commercial applications.

"ISO containers are those big shipping containers you see on ships, trucks, and trains," Portman said.

Portman believes the SSC's impact, once deployed, will reach further than the Navy. "I wouldn't say just Navy," Portman said. "I would say military cargo aircraft, military ships, supply ships, and it would be especially beneficial to the Maritime Prepositioning Force - it's our next generation military supply ship."

MPF ships carry equipment and supplies for the U.S. Marine Corps and operate as part of the Military Sealift Command's Afloat Prepositioning Force (APF). The APF's mission is to provide inter-theater mobility and reduce response time for the delivery of urgently needed U.S. military equipment and supplies to a theater of operations during a war or contingency.

Moritz notes, however, that the SSC isn't just set up to dispense, but also to receive making the system even more utilitarian.

"You can think of this as a building block for automated warehouses; it's a conceptual arrangement for a system of systems," Moritz noted, emphasizing that this is just one in a series of related patents issued to Portmann and Moritz.

Because the ISO container is already a standardized part of the world's commercialized shipping and transportation system, Portmann and Moritz can easily modularize their SSC with different mission packages. The modular or "plug and play" feature would allow the SSC to be used on - or plugged into - almost any major shipping platform, enabling delivery by air, land, or sea.

Additionally, each SSC will have a Container Interface Control Module, which includes the necessary communications hardware and software to enable inventory tracking and control. Mission packages can be pre-programmed or controlled remotely from another location.

Unmanned systems are influencing a whole realm of new technologically advanced Navy ships. The Department of Defense is continually looking to reduce the number of casualties in hostile environments to the largest extent possible. Portmann and Moritz believe the SSC will help achieve this.

"Suppose we're delivering supplies somewhere like Somalia. We've had guys on the back of trucks dispensing those supplies and sometimes they're shot at," Portmann said.

"Instead you could have an SSC on the back of that truck releasing the supplies automatically and no one has to risk his or her life in the process," he concluded.