T&E for military AVs, resources & hot takes
A recent blog post on T&E for autonomous military vehicles, some details about a conference we’re sponsoring, the latest in the V&V handbook blog series, and recent news
The Nexus Newsletter
Welcome to the fifth edition of The Nexus Newsletter - a bi-weekly email newsletter covering recent announcements from Applied Intuition and important news bridging national security and autonomy.
This edition of the newsletter includes a recent Applied blog post on T&E for autonomous military vehicles, some details about a conference we’re sponsoring, the latest in the V&V handbook blog series, recent news, and a list of upcoming conferences and events.
New to this edition: unfiltered lightly filtered commentary from Applied’s government team.
Test & Evaluation for Autonomous Military Vehicles: Challenges (Part 1)
How can the Department of Defense’s safety and performance evaluations for autonomous and semi-autonomous systems meaningfully address the broad spectrum of scenarios that a vehicle might encounter on deployment, without derailing program schedules?
This week, Applied published the first in a two-part blog series covering test and evaluation considerations, approaches, and solutions for autonomous military vehicles. Part 1 of our series focuses on how testing and evaluation challenges differ between autonomous vehicles built for commercial and defense applications.
Stay tuned for part 2, which will outline the DoD’s approach to military vehicle test and evaluation, additional considerations for autonomous military vehicles, and how virtual modeling and simulation tools can more effectively validate the performance of autonomy stacks for defense applications.
Find us at GVSETS 2022
Applied Intuition is a proud sponsor of the Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering & Technology Symposium (GVSETS), taking place August 16-18 in Novi, Michigan! The symposium, organized and hosted by the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA), convenes representatives from industry, academia, and government to identify, develop, and integrate game-changing technologies into current and future military ground vehicles.
While we won’t have a traditional booth, several members of Applied’s government team will be in attendance. Be sure to stop by our treasure map station during the receptions to meet the team, get some swag, and get a stamp for a chance to win a prize!
We’re looking forward to seeing you there.
Applied releases part 3 of V&V handbook blog post series
Our three-part blog post series highlights different aspects of Applied’s Verification & Validation handbook. Part 1 explained what V&V efforts typically look like at different stages of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving systems (ADS) development. Part 2 covered industry practices around scenario creation and test execution. The third and final part of our series, published last week, discusses how autonomy programs typically measure coverage and analyze their system’s performance depending on their development stage.
Download your free copy of the handbook to learn about safety framework best practices, the V&V lifecycle, requirements management and traceability, scenario creation, and test execution.
Reminder: In September, Applied will host a V&V briefing on Capitol Hill that lays out the insights in the handbook and provides recommendations for policymakers in Congress. More details to follow.
News we’re reading
Autonomous systems are gaining momentum in the national security space. Here are excerpts from a few relevant articles, plus brief commentary from Applied Intuition’s government team:
AUVSI | FY 2023 Department of Defense Uncrewed Systems Budget Report
Military organizations worldwide are continuing to integrate uncrewed vehicles (UxV) into their operations at a growing rate. The United States (U.S.) Department of Defense (DOD) has funded the research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) and procurement of UxV for decades, and support for these systems and associated technologies continues with the President’s most recent budget request. Since 2013, AUVSI has been tracking and summarizing that spending for their members.
Procurement of UxV in FY 2023
Starting with procurement, it is clear that uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) have a significantly larger operational footprint on the battlefield when compared with their counterparts in the ground and maritime domains. In the FY 2023 budget request, 29 programs are fully dedicated to the procurement of UAS, totaling over $2.6 billion. Figure 1 shows the top 13 of these UAS programs with the largest funding represented by the Navy’s MQ-25 ($748 million) and MQ-4 Triton ($663 million) aircraft. The Army has also requested $326 million for the Counter Small UAS (C-SUAS) program. The ground and maritime domains are represented by a single program each: the Army’s Robotics and Applique Systems requested $52 million in FY 2023 to acquire ground robotics and soldier borne sensors; and the Navy’s Small & Medium UUV (Uncrewed Undersea Vehicle) program requested $50 million. Detailed information on these programs and the specific technologies being procured will be provided in the “Program Details” section of this report.
Figure 1: UxV procurement programs in the FY 2023 budget request.
RDT&E of UxV in FY 2023
Moving on to the RDT&E of UxV technologies there is a much stronger representation of programs outside of the air domain (Figure 2).
For maritime technologies, the top four uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) projects total $457 million in requested funding for FY 2023 to advance the Navy’s USV Enabling Capabilities, Large USV, Medium USV, and Mine Countermeasure (MCM) USV programs.
The top four uncrewed underwater vehicle (UUV) programs account for approximately $245 million in FY 2023 with efforts focused on the extra-large UUV (XLUUV), the Barracuda expendable mine neutralizer, the medium class UUV Razorback (also referred to as the Littoral Battlespace Sensors-Autonomous Unmanned Vehicle (LBS-AUV)), and the medium class Medusa UUV.
In the ground domain, the top five projects have requested a total of approximately $229 million in FY 2023, four of which are working to develop the Army’s robotic combat vehicles (RCV) prototypes and enabling technologies for robotic vehicles deployed in combat environments. The other is supporting the Army’s Leader/Follower project.
The air domain exceeds all others in requested budget for FY 2023, and as was shown in procurement, the top programs are represented by the Navy’s MQ-25 and MQ-4 Triton aircraft. Other programs with significant funding include the Marine Group 5 UAS Development efforts and the Army’s Future UAS project. The Air Force also has a two noteworthy programs with the RQ-4 Capability Enhancements ($68.8 million) and MQ-9 SLAM ($61.4 million) projects.
There are only a few projects which are fully dedicated to the development of Counter-UAS (C-UAS) technologies. These include the Army’s C-UAS and C-SUAS Joint New Capabilities Development projects with a total funding request of $64.5 million in FY 2023. The Navy also initiated a new project in FY 2023 titled DRAKE 2.0 C-UAS Afloat with approximately $6 million requested.
Figure 2: UxV RDT&E Projects in the FY 2023 budget request.
Our take: PB23 reflects the continued focus on aerial unmanned systems for ISR, continuing a trend from the last twenty years of unmanned ISR aircraft flying in locations where America has air dominance, or at least almost continued local air superiority. Unmanned aircraft also benefit from a lesser mobility challenge and the relative ease of remote piloting and sensing from a half a world away. While the focus on the aerial domain is justified, we think maritime and ground unmanned and autonomous systems will play a much bigger role in large-scale and joint combat operations. It’s encouraging to see a rapid increase in investment projected in those areas. Unmanned maritime systems play a critical part in exploiting gaps in A2/AD zones in the South China Sea, while ground systems are essential to make first contact and take and hold ground. Programs like RCV have the potential to pioneer best practices for unmanned and autonomous ground programs, paving a path for the Abrams and Stryker modernization, and the Optionally Manned Fighting Vehicle.
FedScoop | Army focusing on light robotic combat vehicles, with emphasis on software
The Army has narrowed its focus on developing lighter variants of robotic combat vehicles, but it still plans to leverage a software acquisition pathway to get technology that could be applied to other categories of unmanned platforms in the future, the service’s top weapons buyer said Wednesday.
“We’ve chosen to focus on the RCV-L platform — the light, the smaller platform. And we’ve also, within that, separated out the software element as a separate software acquisition pathway program because we want that control software to be common across many robotic platforms,” Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Doug Bush told reporters at the Pentagon.
“The Army is broadly still, of course, interested in robots of many different sizes,” he noted, “but we’re focusing on RCV-L because we think that’s a necessary first step before going to larger platforms.”
Bush emphasized the importance of software for enabling unmanned vehicle operations on the battlefield.
“From an acquisition standpoint, we’re focused on … in particular, the software, which will be critical for all ground robotic programs going forward. Getting that right early is going to be essential,” he said.
According to Army budget documents, the software acquisition pathway is focusing on “embedded software development and sustainment activities including RCV autonomy software, control station software, and payload control software.”
The effort will incorporate soldier and integrator feedback into product roadmaps to guide the development and maturation of critical software capabilities, and deliver software to surrogate prototypes and full system prototypes for integration.
A system integration laboratory will be used to verify and validate software capabilities in both virtual and live test environments.
The software acquisition pathway will implement a “government-contractor hybrid development approach” to mature, integrate and secure software capabilities and “incorporate software contracting best practices to support the transition of software capabilities into secure code base required for the resilient operation of RCVs in contested environments,” according to budget documents.
The Army was slated to begin designing, building and testing software in the fourth quarter of this fiscal year. The plan is to have a “minimum viability capability release” in fiscal 2024, the second capability release in 2025, the third capability release in 2026, and the fourth capability release in 2027.
The RCV-L is projected to be fielded no earlier than fiscal 2028, an Army spokesperson told FedScoop.
Our take: There is clearly a growing understanding within the Army that autonomy is a software problem, not a hardware problem. Additionally, the incorporation of “software contracting best practices” is promising. Interestingly, Sean Brady at OUSD(A&S) used RCV as a great example of a Middle Tier Acquisition for hardware tied to a Software Acquisition Pathway for the autonomy software - a hybrid contracting approach that is experimental and may be the first of its kind for a combat weapon system. The approach will make the hardware-software integration potentially more dramatic, and it will be interesting to see how the RCV program office approaches system integration over the next few years. We think this is a great first step and are excited to see if other Army programs follow the same path.
Read more from Sean Brady at OUSD(A&S).
Breaking Defense | Navy testing autonomous transit for high speed, cargo ship
The Navy is preparing a high-speed transport vessel to become the first “fully operational US naval ship” to be capable of autonomous travel in a commercial sea lane, a major advancement from the relatively smaller drones the service has previously transited autonomously.
The Navy is putting the ship, an expeditionary fast transport (EPF), through a series of test events dubbed the “Unmanned Logistics Prototype trials,” designed to challenge the ship in autonomous navigation, vessel handling and transfer of control between manned and unmanned modes, according to a July 29 service statement.
“The autonomous capabilities being demonstrated by this prototype system represent a major technological advancement for the EPF platform, the Navy at large and our industry partners. EPF-13 will be the first fully operational U.S. naval ship to possess autonomous capability including the ability to operate autonomously in a commercial vessel traffic lane,” said Tim Roberts, a senior Navy official overseeing the effort.
The Navy plans to also test the ship’s ability to navigate at night and in different weather conditions and sea states.
“These trials will set crucial groundwork for autonomous vessel operations, to include vessel encounter and avoidance maneuvering and compliance with International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea,” according to the statement. A Navy spokesman told Breaking Defense there would be five at-sea trials occurring throughout the summer.
The Navy has been experimenting with autonomous ship navigation in recent years and has successfully sailed its prototype medium-sized unmanned surface vessel Sea Hunter between San Diego and Hawaii multiple times.
But the difference between autonomous travel for Sea Hunter and an EPF is size. The former, clocking in around 140 tons, is a prototype that was built from the ground up with the idea that it will one day transit the ocean with minimal or even no human intervention. The latter is a military cargo ship, designed to move personnel, vehicles, supplies and other materials overseas and is nearly 10 times larger.
Our take: Despite popular discourse around lethal autonomous weapons, many of the most promising defense use cases for autonomy are in support of logistics and transport missions. Those missions are not without their challenges, however, and the EPF’s ability to navigate a commercial sea lane is a major advancement. Developing autonomous systems capable of navigating across massive stretches of open ocean is particularly promising due to the scale of the maritime domain - fleets of autonomous ships can help the Navy cover large swaths of ocean that could not realistically be covered exclusively by manned vessels.
Autonomous ships face a unique challenge when traveling over long distances: between salt water and rough seas, boats always break (whether autonomous or not). The Mayflower Autonomous Ship is a perfect example of this problem - it had to abort a planned Atlantic Ocean crossing earlier this year due to a fault in a simple electrical switch, not the ship’s autonomy stack.
Read more about the Mayflower Autonomous Ship.
Defense One | The Navy Is Testing 5G For Future Forward Operating Bases
The Navy’s SoCal Tech Bridge at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar is experimenting with new 5G networks carried on the back of autonomous vehicles, so that when future robo-amphibs storm the beach, they can bring their own 5G network with them.
The program, called E4, looks to “generate a private 5G network that supports forward operating bases,” via an electric autonomous vehicle, Marine Capt. Benjamin Cohen, director of the NavalX Southern California TechBridge, said during a Defense One event this week.
Future forward operating bases in dangerous spots will need a lot of connectivity to help human operators use drones, sense intruders, and coordinate with jets, ships, or other forces faster than the enemy. And they’ll need that connectivity in an environment where the adversary owns the phone lines and is likely using advanced electromagnetic warfare to jam incoming and outgoing signals.
The Marine Corps has been experimenting with autonomous and semi-autonomous land, sea, and flying drones for beach assault for years. But commanders have been upfront on the limitations. Both autonomous and semi-autonomous drones need a lot of data to perceive their environment. The act of sensing and perceiving works best when it can be pooled collectively, so data that one drone picks up can be instantly shared with teammates, and everyone “sees” the same threat or object, at the same time.
It’s the basic principle that electric vehicle company Tesla is employing to accelerate autonomous driving—collecting as much data from all of their cars as possible. But that Tesla data, collected in civilian street settings, can safely be sent back to cloud farms elsewhere. The military needs a way to recreate that phenomenon, locally.
The SoCal Tech Bridge team wants “to create the opportunity for leadership in the DOD, Navy, and Marine Corps to see these things in action on a daily basis where they build a comfort level to know [what will happen] when they do begin to employ these things downrange,” Cohen said.
Our take: Carrying portable 5G networks on the back of robotic amphibious vehicles is undoubtedly an exciting use case for autonomous vehicles by the military, and is only the latest example of how autonomous systems can enable soldiers and manned vehicles to be more effective. The way in which 5G networks will enable local data sharing between unmanned vehicles is extremely important.
Arguably more important, however, are service or joint force-wide data collection and sharing to enable the development and testing of autonomous systems. Autonomous vehicle programs currently under development by the military need more and better quality sensor data to train their autonomy stacks, and they need it now, while programs are still in their infancy. Data sharing and management are key to the future success of those programs and must be prioritized.
Defense One | After RIMPAC, sailor feedback shows evolving view of unmanned vessels: Officials
The Navy’s engineers guiding the service’s future unmanned surface vessels say this year’s RIMPAC has shown that, unlike some in Washington, the fleet is less concerned about the autonomy software driving the new tech and focused more on what missions it can help sailors achieve.
“One of the biggest [pieces of] feedback we’re getting is that they’re talking about payloads, they’re talking about capabilities,” said Brian Fitzpatrick, a Navy official in the service’s program office for unmanned maritime systems. “They’re not talking about the autonomy… They’re not worried that [the USV is] going to ever run into something.”
The six-week, multi-national Rim of the Pacific exercise wrapped up last week, during which four high profile unmanned surface vessels — known as Sea Hunter, Sea Hawk, Nomad and Ranger — all spent time operating with the fleet alongside US destroyers and other traditional, manned warships.
Fitzpatrick and other Navy officials told a small group of reporters Monday that they are still collecting and analyzing data from the USVs’ operations — including about one test hiccup — but what they value more than raw data is what sailors had to say about getting hands on with the technology.
The officials didn’t address exactly how effective the unmanned vessels were in aiding the exercise, but one of the takeaways, they said, is that despite varying levels of concern here in Washington about the prospect of a US Navy drone sailing autonomously near other, sometimes foreign ships, sailors had little to say about the vessels’ obedience to different commands. Rather, the sailors moved straight to requests, like the ability to control different USVs from the same console.
“That’s one of the biggest [pieces of] feedback — they want to take Sea Hunter and an Overlord, which were developed under two different programs and have two different [communications] suites… to be controlled [through] the same platform,” he said. “Overlord” refers to Project Overlord, the Strategic Capabilities Office program under which the USVs Nomad and Ranger were built.
Our take: Operator trust in autonomy is growing! This reflects one of the themes discussed at Nexus 22: putting autonomous systems in the hands of operators is the best way to build warfighter trust. Operator feedback is always more valuable than the musings of officials sitting thousands of miles away.
Upcoming conferences & events
Tracking new events in the autonomy and national security space can be difficult. Here are a few of the upcoming conferences and events that Applied’s government team is tracking:
August 16-18, 2022 | Ground Vehicle Systems Engineering & Technology Symposium
September 18-22, 2022 | ITS World Congress
September 19-21, 2022 | AFA 2022 Air, Space & Cyber Conference
September 21, 2022 | Defense Applications Expo (DAX)
September 22, 2022 | AUVSI Defense
September 27-30, 2022 | 39th International T&E Symposium
September 28-29, 2022 | Unmanned Maritime Systems Technology USA 2022
September 28-29, 2022 | Fed Supernova 2022
October 10-12, 2022 | AUSA 2022 Annual Meeting & Exposition
Thank you for reading The Nexus Newsletter. Subscribe for more news from the nexus of national security and autonomy.