Series: CRUSER's TechCon
Series Type
Conference
Organizations
140 results
Publication Search Results
Now showing 1 - 10 of 140
Publication Autonomous Wave Glider Based Environmental Sampling in Support of Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare [video](2018-04-18) Wang, Qing; Yamaguchi, Ryan; Meteorology (MR)Improved capability to model and forecast atmospheric effects on electromagnetic (EM) spectrum propagation in the battle-space has broad application throughout Navy and Department of Defense functional areas. Many Naval systems utilize the EM energy, active or passive, for applications in remote sensing (radar), communications (radio), and optical (high energy laser) systems. Refraction is an atmospheric property that bends EM energy from a straight-line path and is caused by spatial variations in temperature, humidity, and pressure. Meanwhile, small perturbations of the refraction index significantly impact free-space optical and high energy laser (HEL) weapon performance. These effects need to be quantified and predicted for all weather conditions. The Liquid Robotics Wave Glider, known as the Sensor Hosting Autonomous Remote Craft (SHARC) for Navy applications, is a slow-moving platform that can be deployed for extended missions. With adequate sensors onboard SHARC, environmental data can be collected in data sparse regions or hazardous environments. The standard SHARC is instrumented with a default meteorological station (Airmar PB200) that samples air pressure, temperature, wind speed and wind direction at 1.12 m above the water surface. The SHARC automatically transmits 10-minute averaged data through an Iridium satellite link. To maximize SHARC utilization in future Navy-relevant applications, NPS Meteorology Department partnered with the NPS Physics Department and engaged in integration and testing efforts to evaluate the default Airmar PB200 and sought optimal sensors for air-sea interaction and EM propagation studies. In this effort, we developed two SHARC payloads, the 'NPS Met� and �NPS Turbulence� systems. NPS Met payload measures pressure, air temperature, wind, SST, and relative humidity. This SHARC payload package was deployed three times in the Monterey Bay, along with a collocated drifting buoy (Marine Air-Sea Flux buoy, or MASFlux) with proven flux, mean, wave, and SST measurement for comparison and validation. NPS Met was augmented with a 3-D ultrasonic wind anemometer sensor and became the NPS Turbulence payload. Addition of the 20-Hz turbulence sampling required considerable modifications to the data acquisition and power management components. The NPS-owned Liquid Robotics WaveGlider SV2 (previously Mako, now named Thresher) was deployed with the turbulence payload during the Coupled Air-Sea Processes and EM ducting Research east coast field campaign (CASPER-East). Data collected from Thresher in CASPER-East were limited due to water ingress and salt corrosion inside the meteorological sensors and data acquisition system. The sensor payload configuration for Thresher was redesigned for the CASPER west coast field campaign (CASPER-West) to ensure continuous data collection during its deployment, while maintaining minimal flow distortions. In this presentation, we will showcase the Thresher payload design iterations, present example results from the met and turbulence payloads, and relate those results to the environmental impact on Navy operations using EM spectrum for sensing, communication, and weapon systems.Publication sUAS-based Payload Development and Testing for Quantifying Optical Turbulence [video](2018-04-18) Suring, Lee; Yamaguchi, Ryan; Jones, Kevin; Wang, Qing; Meteorology (MR); Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)Small UAS (sUAS) are a cost-effective and easy to use solution to fill the niche between surface-based measurement platforms (e.g. buoys, WaveRider, etc.) and measurements with manned aircraft, providing a three dimensional view of the lower atmosphere. Due to their small size, sUAS can also be used in difficult to reach areas such as within a wind farm at altitudes that are difficult for tower based measurements. Because of these reasons, there have been many developments of sUAS in the past decades for meteorological applications. One important application of the sUAS-based environmental sampling is to quantify the lower atmosphere to initialize or constrain forecast models or as an independent validation for model evaluation, and may also be used to support tactical decisions, aiding in the prediction of electromagnetic (EM) wave propagation and propagation of high energy laser (HEL), where the atmospheric refractive properties are dependent on state variables such as pressure, temperature, and humidity in the lowest 2 km of the atmosphere. Quantifying the low level gradients of these variables is critical for predicting radar and communication signal and HEL propagations through the atmosphere. Our recent development in sUAS instrumentation focused on sensing capability to quantify optical turbulence in the lower atmosphere that has important applications in characterizing atmospheric effects on free-space optical communication and high energy laser weapon performance in the atmosphere. These electro-optical (EO) systems are mainly affected by atmospheric scintillation quantified by the structure function parameter(Cn2) of the atmospheric index of refraction. Although water vapor is one of the variables determining the index of refraction in the optical wavelength, a large component of Cn2 is the temperature structure parameter, CT2, and can be calculated with high-rate temperature perturbation measurements. Hence, our focus was on developing a payload to quantify high-rate temperature perturbations in addition to mean meteorological variables such as wind, temperature, humidity, and pressure. The airframe we use is adapted from the Finwing Penguin built for the first-person-viewpoint (FPV) hobby market. The airframe includes a raised pusher propeller scheme that places the propulsion downstream of the met sensors, and shields the operator from the propeller during hand-launches. The basic meteorological sensors include the self-recording multi-parameter weather sensor (InterMet XQ) and modified radiosonde (iMet-1) to obtain GPS coordinates, pressure, temperature, and relative humidity data. Data from the flight controller, pitot-static tube, and IMU systems were processed to retrieve mean wind speed and direction. For fast temperature measurements, we integrated a fine-wire (0.001 in) thermocouple and small diameter (0.02 in) Pt100 RTD probe into the Penguin. The thermocouple does not provide highly accurate measurements due to its non-linear response and the need for a second temperature measurement at the cold-junction. Albeit slower responding, the more accurate Pt100 temperature sensor is deployed to measure the mean air temperature and adjust the thermocouple's mean temperature component. In this presentation, we will introduce our effort of Penguin payload development. Results from the most recent Penguin test flights at McMillan Air Field, Camp Roberts, CA will be used to demonstrate the sampling capability. We will also show results from our ground evaluation tests at Marina Airport where the Penguin system made measurements side-by-side with proven sensors and data acquisition systems. The purpose of the ground test was to verify thermocouple amplifier provides sufficient time-resolution to resolve thermal plumes. The perturbation data from both sonic anemometer and Penguin data will be used to evaluate the capability of obtaining CT2 from a sUAS.Publication Real-Time Optimal Motion Planning for Responsive Mobile Networks(2018-04-17) Walton, Claire; Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education and Research (CRUSER); Center for Autonomous Vehicle Research (CAVR); Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (MAE)Unmanned vehicles have demonstrated their utility in every operational domain: land, sea, air, and space. Heterogeneous vehicles and sensors can be combined to form mobile sensing and communications networks that leverage their individual capabilities, but these networks must be responsive to rapidly changing events across multiple domains. Prior ONR- and CRUSER-funded research at NPS has produced new algorithms and computational tools for solving multi-agent optimization problems under time or resource constraints. These tools incorporate vehicle dynamics, sensor characteristics, and probabilistic models to plan vehicle trajectories which optimize mission objectives. These algorithms have been successfully applied to solve optimal search problems during mine countermeasures (MCM) or intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) operations. This capability was recently demonstrated at CRUSER's Multi-Thread Experiment (MTX) on San Clemente Island in November 2018. At present, optimal mission plans are computed off-line, prior to launch, and are therefore unable to respond to new information being produced and shared by other team members during a mission. At MTX, ScanEagle aircraft flew optimal ISR patterns to search the island's road network for enemy forces, but could not adapt these pre-planned trajectories to better support friendly forces actions on the ground. Clearly, this capability is needed in order to fully realize unmanned systems' potential as nodes in a responsive mobile network. We propose new research that will augment existing motion planning algorithms in three ways: 1) Update underlying probabilistic models in response to detection events or external cueing/tasking received from other network nodes; 2) Explicitly incorporate network communications constraints to maintain connectivity with other network nodes; and 3) Adapt current MATLAB-based algorithms for near real-time implementation on actual vehicle autopilots. One promising approach uses Bezier curves for efficiently computing feasible vehicle trajectories in collaborative, multi-agent applications requiring spatial and temporal de-confliction under time-varying communications constraints. These improvements will make unmanned vehicles much more responsive while operating within the network control system paradigm being explored through CRUSER's MTX program.Publication Observability Options Against an Adversarial Swarm - a Quantitative Analysis(2018-04-17) Kaminer, Isaac; Park, Hyeongjun; Kang, Wei; Gong, QiIn this presentation we address the problem of detecting internal cooperating strategies of an adversarial swarm by estimating a set of parameters that define a particular swarm cooperating strategy. This is a nonstandard estimation problem the estimation problem we address in this paper is not to estimate, for example, position and velocity of each member of the swarm; rather we are interested in understanding how individual agents cooperate to achieve the swarm behavior that is observed by outsiders. For a non-cooperative, adversarial swarm, this estimation problem produces unique challenges. The dynamic, evolving configuration of the swarm over time can lead to time periods where observation is effective for estimation, or it can lead to times such as when a swarm has stabilized into an equilibrium configuration when some internal strategies may be unobservable. The interactive nature of a swarm also makes relevant the impact of the observer on the swarm itself. For a swarm which reacts to obstacles or other agents, the observer may impact the movements of the swarm. This provides the opportunity for a dynamic observer to act not just as a passive data collector, but as a possible agent provocateur, provoking the swarm into more revealing behaviors. In this presentation, we explore tools for this problem using a model-based approach. We adopt a swarm model developed by Leonard et al. where authors propose an algorithm for controlling a swarm based on a potential function and virtual leaders. The potential function and virtual leaders employed can be characterized by a set of parameters. The estimation problem is then examined for the estimation of these parameters. Prior to actually designing an estimator a natural question is whether these parameters are in fact observable. The answer to this question is surprisingly nontrivial. Using the well-established notion of unobservability index we show that these parameters are indeed observable. However, in order to achieve observability the adversarial swarm must be disrupted by an intruder. In the presence of the intruder the unobservability index is shown to be good, i.e., the parameters in question are observable. Another non-trivial aspect of the problem is estimation of the parameters. Many swarm models involve parameters that represent the range limit of communication and/or range of influence among agents. These parameters introduce discontinuity into the swarm dynamics making the design of a convergent estimation algorithm very challenging. When applying standard filtering techniques such as unscented Kalman filter (UKF) to actually estimate these parameters we have discovered that the estimates often fail to converge although the parameters have shown to be observable.Publication Making Risk-Informed System Architecture Decisions in Early Autonomous System Design [video](2018-04-17) Van Bossuyt, DouglasThere is a need for rapid design, manufacture, and deployment of autonomous systems for use in dangerous and evolving environments. DoD and its contractors are coming under increased pressure to field new or redesigned autonomous systems that are under budget and on schedule while being held to the expectation of systems needing to be reliable, robust, resilient safe, and survivable. A gap exists in conceptual system modeling methods to adequately, realistically, and cost-effectively model autonomous systems that can be used for early system architecture decisions. This talk presents ongoing efforts in: 1) providing functional modeling methods with refined function failure analysis tools that predict failure pathways, consequences, and likelihoods; 2) developing a tool that determines sustainability of functional models based on manufacturing processes, and with ongoing work in connecting functional models with manufacturing process selection for system components; 3) analyzing autonomous system designs for vulnerability to irrational behaviors of other systems within a system of systems; 4) making prognostics and health management system architecture decisions based upon early design modeling and simulations; and 5) analyzing autonomous and paired crewed/autonomous system mission goals using manufacturing and design knowledge, risk information, and risk attitudes of operators through a functional modeling approach. The goal of this research is to provide a toolbox of systems modeling and analysis methods for practitioners to make risk and failure-informed system architecture decisions rapidly and accurately, and develop system models in the earliest stage of design that require less redesign and result in quicker time to market, safer products, and more value to the customer.Publication MEMS Acoustic Sensor for Drone Detection [video](Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, 2017-04-11) Coursey, Todd; Physics (PH)Low-cost unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are equipped with a variety of passive and active sensors and increasingly sophisticated technological capabilities; everything from cameras and radio frequency collection devices to commercially available materials that culminate in deployment of weapons. It is widely assumed that targets of vital interest are being watched and targeted. Bottom line, UAV operations are not limited to overseas battlefields; they have already been used to disrupt our daily routines within the continental United States and WILL exploit and violate traditional security measures surrounding our borders, DoD facilities, nuclear facilities and public venues. Because UAV emerging technologies are driven by commercial applications, and most components are available in off-the-shelf applications, it is likely that near future UAVs will be as capable as the best of our small systems in operation today. Technologies used to counter UAV threats on the battlefield are not effective within our own borders. Planners cannot assume they are exempt from fines or prosecution for violating civil airspace or spectrum management policies in the interest of thwarting a potential hazard, counter UAV operations in most cases must be in compliance with Federal Laws. Numerous commercial and Federal organizations are exploring products that will disrupt and destroy Low Slow UAVs. Engagement methods range from simple and low tech such as air blasts, and small munitions –to- more sophisticated and costly outcomes such as Peregrine or counter attack UAVs. By deploying and repurposing technologies such as MEMS, low-end microphones (such as those found on all smartphones); our acoustic system could provide UAV triangulation and early warning on simple technology with a transmittable beacon for the identification and subsequent engagement. Apps can be created (from the acoustic signature) that can display information about the type of UAV detected, which will then determine appropriate engagement methods. By seeking out and establishing cooperative partnerships, we will then be able to resource and collaborate with other Federal agencies to integrate our current acoustic research with other programs and present best options for an integrated total system that will address the follow on concerns from identification to engagement of low slow UAVs.Publication Robotics Education: NPS RoboDojo(2018-04-18) Tsolis, KristenPublication 2016_07 CRUSER TechCon(Monterey, California: Naval Postgraduate School, 2016-07) Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education and Research (CRUSER); Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education and Research (CRUSER)Publication CRUSER TechCon 2018(2018-04-18) Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education and Research (CRUSER); Center of Educational Design, Development, and Distribution (CED3)A series of spotlight talks grouped by topic area, broadcast to the non-resident CRUSER community via live streamPublication Protected Optical/RF hybrid LPI LPD LPE machine to machine/human communications [video](2018-04-18) Ateshian, PeterNPS CS Department and Moves Institute have developed Network Optional Warfare (NOW), Laser Optical MiMo QR and Laser Morse code nLoS LPI LPD LPE communications. As the use of unmanned systems grows ethical policies and battle directives will have a more rapid tempo. RF denied battle spaces will be the norm rather than isolated. Optical Morse code for single beam laser/RF hybrid communications will provide a machine to machine (M2M) and machine to human Electromagnetic resilient alternative. This is a five domain and boundary technology. Space, airborne, terrestrial, marine/surface and subsea. This Optical and hybrid RF Optical (RFO) has frequency and spatial diversity providing more EM resilience. NPS CS Department has already demonstrated working prototypes or MIMO optical QR code and Morse code laser signaling through air/water. See links below for a demonstration of each. https://drive.google.com/folderviewid=1mMsXQPsWKEG3hMzpfRuNIvzKZr1gQbwQ NPS streaming QR code demo LEWatch "NPS Morse Code Demo" on YouTube https://youtu.be/sLWZLHQHem4