Brian Funk, Jonathan Castelli, Adam Watkins, Christopher McCubbin, Steven Marshall, Jeffrey Barton, Andrew Newman, Cammy Peterson, Jonathan DeSena, Daniel Dutrow, Pedro Rodriguez
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory deployed and demonstrated a prototype Cooperative Hunter
Killer (CHK) Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) capability and a prototype Upstream Data Fusion (UDF) capability as
participants in the Joint Expeditionary Force Experiment 2010 in April 2010. The CHK capability was deployed at the
Nevada Test and Training Range to prosecute a convoy protection operational thread. It used mission-level autonomy
(MLA) software applied to a networked swarm of three Raven hunter UAS and a Procerus Miracle surrogate killer UAS,
all equipped with full motion video (FMV). The MLA software provides the capability for the hunter-killer swarm to
autonomously search an area or road network, divide the search area, deconflict flight paths, and maintain line of sight
communications with mobile ground stations. It also provides an interface for an operator to designate a threat and
initiate automatic engagement of the target by the killer UAS. The UDF prototype was deployed at the Maritime
Operations Center at Commander Second Fleet, Naval Station Norfolk to provide intelligence analysts and the ISR
commander with a common fused track picture from the available FMV sources. It consisted of a video exploitation
component that automatically detected moving objects, a multiple hypothesis tracker that fused all of the detection data
to produce a common track picture, and a display and user interface component that visualized the common track picture
along with appropriate geospatial information such as maps and terrain as well as target coordinates and the source
video.
The JHU/APL Path Planning team has developed path planning techniques to look for paths that balance the utility and risk associated with different routes through a minefield. Extending on previous years' efforts, we investigated real-world Naval mine avoidance requirements and developed a tactical decision aid (TDA) that satisfies those requirements. APL has developed new mine path planning techniques using graph based and genetic algorithms which quickly produce near-minimum risk paths for complicated fitness functions incorporating risk, path length, ship kinematics, and naval doctrine. The TDA user interface, a Java Swing application that obtains data via Corba interfaces to path planning databases, allows the operator to explore a fusion of historic and in situ mine field data, control the path planner, and display the planning results. To provide a context for the minefield data, the user interface also renders data from the Digital Nautical Chart database, a database created by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency containing charts of the world's ports and coastal regions. This TDA has been developed in conjunction with the COMID (Cooperative Organic Mine Defense) system. This paper presents a description of the algorithms, architecture, and application produced.
We have been developing path planning techniques to look for paths
that balance the utility and risk associated with different routes through a minefield. Such methods will allow a battlegroup commander to evaluate alternative route options while searching for low risk paths. Extending on previous years' efforts, we have implemented a generalized path planning framework to allow rapid evaluation and integration of new path planning algorithms. We have also implemented
a version of Rapidly-Explored Random Trees (RRTs) for mine path planning which integrates path risk, path time, and dynamic and kinematic concerns. Several variants of the RRT algorithm and our existing path planning algorithms were quantitatively evaluated using the generalized path planning framework and an algorithm-dynamic evaluation graphical user interface.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.