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Unmanned Underwater Vehicles become Force Multipliers

NAVSEA Newsroom

Release Date: 6/10/2004

By Dan Broadstreet, Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Public Affairs

PANAMA CITY, Fla. - They've been called drones, robots, Autonomous Undersea Vehicles, and Unmanned Underwater Vehicles, but regardless of their name, Navy scientists of 2004 intend to use them to dramatically speed up mine hunting and mine clearance operations, according to Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City's Research and Development Department.

"A time-consuming and exhausting part of these operations is the analysis of the sensor data," said Dr. Gerald Dobeck, project engineer for NSWCPC's research and development of computer aided detection and computer aided classification (CAD/CAC). "Here expert operators spend many hours reviewing volumes of sensor data to determine the presence and locations of mines." In 1995, the Office of Naval Research began supporting research to reduce CAD/CAC analysis time for mine hunting in the Very Shallow Water littoral environment - a water depth measuring from 10 to 40 feet. Mine hunting the VSW region is complex and difficult because it is nearer to the shore and cluttered with everything from wrecked vessels and tires to natural obstacles such as coral reefs.

In 1999, Dobeck decided to combine his team's CAD/CAC algorithms with those developed by Raytheon, Portsmouth, R.I.; Lockheed Martin Company, Syracuse, N.Y.; and Alphatech, Burlington, Mass. These mathematical algorithms process sensor data collected by UUVs to distinguish actual mines from mine-like objects. The combination, termed algorithm fusion, was incorporated into a software tool called Post Mission Analysis 2000 (PMA 2000), which radically reduces the time required to screen clutter.

Dobeck indicated his team has actually put CAD/CAC onboard the UUV. This has allowed data to be processed in real time while it is being collected - an improvement made possible by the advent of smaller and lower-powered computer processors.

"In addition, with the gradual emergence of reliable underwater acoustic communications, real-time CAD/CAC will permit the reporting of mine-like contacts as they are found," Dobeck said, explaining that this would provide the battlespace commander more timely information.

According to NSWCPC Naval Special Warfare Transition and Acquisition Program Manager John Dudinsky, UUVs' timesaving qualities were proven during Operation Iraqi Freedom, when several UUVs - called Remote Environmental Monitoring Unit(s) (REMUS, manufactured by Hydroid) - helped the Navy clear a safe path in the port of Umm Qasr for the British supply ship, Sir Galahad. The ship was delivering more than 200 tons of food and emergency provisions to aid war-torn Iraqi people.

"There was a mixture of diving elements employed during this rescue operation, including several REMUS UUVs," Dudinsky said, reporting that without the aid of UUVs, the operation could have taken 21 days of continuous dive operations.

"The search for mines, assisted by UUVs, ended up taking 16 hours of continuous underwater operations, in 10 missions, to search 2.5 million square meters," Dudinsky reported, adding that once real time CAD/CAC reaches optimum performance, UUVs will use it for significant timeline savings.

Crediting "emerging key technologies," Dobeck said continued progress in computing processing hardware, modern automatic target recognition algorithms, and algorithm fusion will allow UUVs to attain full potential and operate with little human intervention. He referred to CAD/CAC and algorithm fusion as the "enabling brains" of mine-hunting UUVs and likened the efficiency of fused algorithms to merging multiple medical opinions. "Combining each of our algorithms is analogous to using different medical specialists to precisely diagnose a patient's illness. The false targets from one algorithm are typically not in common among the majority, while mines are likely to be detected by the majority," Dobeck said, declaring that the performance of algorithm fusion in PMA 2000 is quickly approaching that of the expert operator and eventually will help keep people out of harms way.

"Algorithm fusion works because all CAD/CAC algorithm designers use unique technical approaches that complement one another," he said.

According to the head of NSWCPC's Littoral Sensing Technologies Division, Dr. John Lathrop, the other half of the equation requires the advanced imagery and new sensors his team is developing. "How many mine-like targets you find down there depends on two things - how smart your algorithm is and how good your sensors are," Lathrop said, adding that his team is introducing an advanced sensor called Synthetic Aperture Sonar, which he believes to be a definite contribution toward building a force of cooperative UUVs for the Navy. Next to merge with UUVs will be acoustic communications that enable an interactive UUV force, Dobeck said.

"The Navy refers to this synergy as Cooperative Behavior," Dobeck said, explaining that if a mine-like target is found by a wide-area-scanning UUV, it will then transmit an order to another UUV equipped with short-range sensors to conduct target/non-target confirmation.

NSWCPC's Head of Robotic Technology Branch, Phil Bernstein, asserted that Dobeck's team has actually demonstrated real-time CAD/CAC capability onboard the UUV. "We demonstrated it back in 2001 and 2003 - in real time - on a REMUS vehicle," Bernstein said. "With a force of cooperative mission-specialized UUVs autonomously conducting a mission in one area, the platform having delivered this force is then free to support other missions elsewhere. Hence, UUVs become Force Multipliers," he said. Bernstein's team has already successfully demonstrated Cooperative Behavior in a variety of robotic Surf-Zone Crawlers. Dobeck, Dudinsky, Bernstein and Lathrop all seemed confident that a force of robotic UUVs will eventually strengthen the Navy by serving as highly efficient Force Multipliers. "You know, Congress has said by 2015, a third of all military ground vehicles will be unmanned," Bernstein said, he also indicated that for air, land and sea, "Unmanned systems are clearly the future."