Certus Core, Inc. — Department of Defense STTR Phase II: SOCOM22D-ST01

Description

To support Next Generation Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Situational Awareness applied research goals, Certus Group proposes the deployment of multiple Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) in a meshed configuration to enable collaborative autonomous sensing on littoral targets of strategic interest in a GPS denied environment. In order to develop this capability, a number of technologies would have to be integrated; however many of the individual components that comprise the features of this capability already exist and are mature today. AUVs employing underwater sensing packages (LiDAR, SONAR, etc) have been in existence for some time and are now smaller and relatively less expensive in recent years. Additionally, modern AUVs are deployed with the necessary edge processing devices to enable AI/ML based sensing and detection as well as conditional autonomous responses that enable autonomously triggered follow-on actions. Hydroacoustic communications systems have matured into small, deployable, low power devices enabling AUVs to communicate to each other as well as to other vessel-based communications platforms. AUV guidance and navigation have also matured with many viable non-GPS based solutions to support operating in denied or restrictive environments. Certus Group has identified and is proposing SOF-peculiar ontology development to support SOCOM use cases for collaborative sensing on targets of potential interest: autonomous collaborative responses from multiple deployed AUV platforms specialized for SOF missions; the simulation and data operations environments to support the collection, storage, and processing of real-time data as well as the creation of simulated data in order to train and test SOF-peculiar models. Additionally through their partners USF-IAE, Beam Sea LLC and Tampa Deep Sea eXplorers Certus Group is proposing optical communications utilizing the already deployed LiDAR system on the Tampa Deep Sea eXplorers AUV. Fielding these solutions in an active port environment that is a short drive from SOCOM HQ will add to the solution’s effectiveness by incorporating real active AUVs, other commercial vessel traffic, and an urban maritime port environment into the modeling and algorithm development process. The proximity to SOCOM will also enable rapid feedback on demonstrations due to the proximity to a valuable user community there. Special Operations Forces lack some of the key data, digital, and physical infrastructure needed to field collaborative sensing AUVs against a near peer competitor in the Strategic Competition environment. Certus Group proposes the creation of that infrastructure to support near term problems such as Underwater Collaborative AUV sensing but also the creation of other SOF specific ontologies that enable small, autonomous platforms to be fielded by SOF Warriors supporting Strategic Competition missions.