News: Navy’s Autonomous Swarmboats Can Overwhelm Adversaries - Office of Naval Research
Published on Oct 4, 2014
The autonomous Swarm demonstration, sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), highlights a first-of-its-kind technology that gives Naval warfighters a decisive edge through enabling unmanned Navy vessels to overwhelm an adversary.Navy puts autonomous ‘swarmboats’ into action -- Defense Systems
The demonstration took place on the James River in Virginia during the first two weeks of August, 2014.
Developed by the Office of Naval Research, the Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing, or CARACaS, system can, for the cost of several thousand dollars, turn just about any boat into an unmanned vessel, according to Rear Adm. Matthew L. Klunder, chief of Naval Research.During a two-week demonstration in August, as many as 13 patrol boats and other vehicles outfitted with the CARACaS sensor and software kit worked in concert—either autonomously or by remote—on the James River in Virginia, escorting a high-value vessel (in this case, the researchers’ ship, the Relentless), which is and then surrounding a mock enemy ship when it appeared. Although the purpose was to demonstrate the boats’ ability to swarm, boats operated by remote could have fired on the intruding ship as well, Klunder said during a recent conference call with reporters.
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| A CARACaS Control System includes three coupled agents (the engines) and a world model. |
Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing (CARACaS) is a recent product of a continuing [NASA] effort to develop architectures for controlling either a single autonomous robotic vehicle or multiple cooperating but otherwise autonomous robotic vehicles. CARACaS is potentially applicable to diverse robotic systems that could include aircraft, spacecraft, ground vehicles, surface water vessels, and/or underwater vessels.
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The exercise, which took place in August, simulated the transit of a large Navy vessel through a strait, a journey that could be perilous if carried out in the presence of a foe with hostile intent. The mission of the swarm boats was to protect the high-value ship as it navigated through narrow waters.U.S. Navy Tests Robot Boat Swarm to Overwhelm Enemies - IEEE Spectrum
During the demonstration, a manned aircraft flying over the river identified a vessel that posed a threat to the capital ship and sent a signal directly to 13 swarm boats below.
The boats sensed their environment, planned their routes and maneuvered — without the assistance of a human operator — toward the danger in a synchronized fashion without hitting any of the dozens of ships and obstacles on the river. The boats’ paths were determined by sensors.
“Each boat was sharing situational awareness information and ... seeing a fused picture of the other vessel traffic on the river. ... They were working as a team,” Robert Brizzolara, program manager at the Office of Naval Research, told reporters at the Pentagon last week.
"Numbers may once again matter in warfare in a way they have not since World War II, when the U.S. and its allies overwhelmed the Axis powers through greater mass," wrote Paul Scharre, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a military research institution in Washington, D.C., in an upcoming report titled "Robotics on the Battlefield Part II: The Coming Swarm."Green Car Congress: ONR developing offensive autonomous swarming capability for unmanned surface vehicles; adapting JPL’s CARACaS
"Qualitative superiority will still be important, but may not be sufficient alone to guarantee victory," Scharre wrote. "Uninhabited systems in particular have the potential to bring mass back to the fight in a significant way by enabling the development of swarms of low-cost platforms."
The Navy does not have a firm timeline for when such robot swarms could become operational. For now, ONR researchers hope to improve the autonomous system in terms of its ability to "see" its surroundings using different sensing technologies. They also want to improve how the boats navigate autonomously around obstacles, even in the most unexpected situations that human programmers haven't envisioned. But the decision to have such robot boats open fire upon enemy targets will still rest with human sailors.
JPL Robotics: Research Tasks
USSV - Operations in Challenging Environments
Description:
Navigation of Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs) for missions during all weather and time of day conditions is challenging due to the need for robust sensing that is fully integrated into the autonomous control system. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has requested that JPL design, integrate and test a Day/Night Hazard Avoidance System (DNHAS) for autonomous navigation of a designated USV under daylight and nighttime operating conditions. The new sensing system for this project is based on a previously designed wide baseline, high-resolution stereo system that has been used on US Navy USVs for the last six years. The new system uses higher resolution cameras for a greater look-ahead distance, coupled with stereo infrared and color cameras for the operation during nighttime. The autonomous control system on the unmanned boats is the Control Architecture for Robotic Agent Command and Sensing (CARACaS) that has been extensively tested on US Navy USVs and Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) over the last eight years. The new sensing and behavior systems will be tested on the water using boats provided by the US Navy. Point of Contact: Terry Huntsberger - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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