Recent testing at Fort Hood, TX showed state-of-the-art autonomy for critically needed applications for the US Army.
Unmanned operations in snow and rain.
Owners Karl Murphy (L) and Alberto Lacaze (R) in front of an unmanned Stryker vehicle.
Route Planning Aid for Convoys (RPAC)
Phase I SBIR, OSD08-CR4: Route Planning Aid for Convoys (RPAC) SPONSOR: Harold Hawkins, Ph.D Office of Naval Research
Planning convoy routes through hostile territory is a non-trivial task. The convoy commander and the subcommander meticulously study the battle space and fuse intelligence to maximize situational awareness and minimize risk. Route planning requires much more than just knowledge of road locations and blockages. Shot analysis reports, counter intelligence reports, friendly/hostile/neutral locations, and social/cultural mores are all critical aspects of the battle space.
Data fusion does not end at the planning stage.Throughout the convoy operations, recon teams and counter-intelligence agents are providing situational reports that continuously change the threat levels of the routes. The commander must make decisions on the fly to avoid any significant threats. Under these stressful, fast pace conditions, accounting for all the sources of intelligence becomes extremely difficult.
Fusing various sources of data is an ongoing problem for convoy planning and tactical intelligence at large. Robotic Research (RR), General Dynamics Robotic Systems (GDRS), and Rababy & Associates have designed the Route Planning Aid for Convoys (RPAC) system to provide a near real-time tool to fuse actionable intelligence and suggest routes for convoy operations. This system will use the Combat Operations Center (COC) as the all-source fusion center, which will disseminate correlated intelligence to the convoy using existing hardware with built-in cultural tools and graphics.
