SBIR/STTR Award attributes
The US Navy has embarked on an effort to diversify its fleet to include fully unmanned surface platforms. As the endurance of these unmanned systems extends from days to months, pre-mission planning will be insufficient to handle the uncertainty in operations that occurs when transiting thousands of miles without operator input. Nowhere is this more pressing than in weather avoidance, where the chaotic nature of the dynamics limits practical forecasting to ten days of validity. Advanced planning and re-planning algorithms are needed to provide robust and safe planning utilizing machine forethought, where the platform avoids entering situations with dangerously restricted future actions. In Phase I, Metron developed a prototype of the Adverse Weather Avoidance, Re-planning, and Evasion (AWARE) planning tool that operates at the furthest extent of available meteorological and oceanographic (METOC) forecast data to enable long term planning. AWARE uses modern ideas in automated planning, synthesized forecast weather data, and incorporates platform capabilities to formulate a careful risk-aware decision process to map positions and times to the most favorable route. The resulting capability provides the ability to simultaneously minimize risks to the platform while achieving designated mission objectives. In Phase II, Metron will leverage the prototype AWARE planning tool to further develop it into a robust long term planning and safety system capable of integrating into the Navy’s Unmanned Maritime Autonomy Architecture (UMAA). These efforts will be focused on generating a Phase II product that can (1) Ingest and adapt to higher fidelity METOC data, (2) Integrate operational capabilities of the platform to enhance risk assessments, and (3) Generate evaluations of route recommendations to provide metrics for comparing the risks of updated, or externally produced, routes.
