STTR Phase I: Low-cost, onboard navigational autonomy and awareness for next generation UMVs

该项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力将是减少在执行现实世界、具体的、基于任务的活动中操作多个无人平台所需的必要监督和监督，这些活动支持搜索和救援、常规测绘和情报收集任务。将控制从远程操作转移到自主导航，可以使救生员等第一响应者的能力提高四倍，以协助大规模海上灾难，例如救援场景。通过使用这项技术，目前在常规激流事件中由一名救生员处理3名遇难者的做法将得到四倍的改善，使救生员能够更好地管理可能涉及100名遇难者的大规模海上灾难。人类救生员可以专注于那些需要紧急个人援助的人（例如，失去知觉、体温过低或儿童），而无人驾驶的海上平台可以负责对有更好自救能力的幸存者群体做出反应。救生员助理机器人还可以帮助处理美国每年40多万件不那么引人注目的事件。机器人不仅可以拯救生命，还可以减少救生员的风险，因为救生员通常必须游泳或水上摩托出去为危险条件下的受害者提供漂浮和救生索。这项小型企业技术转让（STTR）第一阶段项目将为自主平台开发更高的智能和自我意识，从而增加运营商的信任。并允许那些可能认为自主平台不可靠的潜在运营商？由于潜在的通信链路丢失，采用这些平台要有更大的信心。该技术将从远场导航控制（如基于航路点的导航）过渡到近场控制，允许在动态环境中将平台精确交付到所需位置。这种能力将允许海上平台自动驾驶到指定的幸存者集群，根据已知的社会环境减速并采取行动，以避免进一步给受害者带来压力。在车上，车辆健康监测将允许报告和广播关键系统参数，从而与该地区的其他平台建立临时网络。总体目标将是优化任何地区的资源使用，并迅速允许多个救生员团队聚集在一起应对大规模海上伤亡事件，而无需预先注册或先验地相互了解。s系统。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project will be to reduce the necessary supervision and oversight required to operate multiple unmanned platforms in the execution of real-world, specific, task-based activities supporting search and rescue, routine mapping and intelligence gathering missions. Shifting control from teleoperation to autonomous navigation could enable first responders such as lifeguards, to quadruple their capacity to assist in mass, maritime disaster, rescue scenarios for example. The current practice of a single lifeguard handling 3 victims in a routine riptide incident will be improved by a factor of four, through the use of this technology, allowing lifeguards to better manage mass-scale, maritime disasters that may involve a hundred victims. Human lifeguards could focus on those people requiring immediate personal assistance (unconscious, hypothermia or children for instance), while unmanned maritime platforms could be tasked with responding to clusters of survivors better capable of self-rescue. Lifeguard assistant robots can also help with the over 400,000 lower profile events in the US each year. A robot could not only save lives but reduce risk to the lifeguard who typically has to swim or jet-ski out to provide flotation and rescue lines to victims in dangerous conditions.This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project will develop increased intelligence and self-awareness for autonomous platforms that will result in an increase in operator ?trust? and allow potential operators who might consider autonomous platforms as ?unreliable? due to potential lost communication links, to have greater confidence in adopting these platforms. The technology will transition from far field navigation control (such as waypoint based navigation) to a near field control allowing precision delivery of the platform to the desired location in a dynamic environment. This capability would allow a maritime platform to autonomously drive to a designated cluster of survivors, slow down and behave according to known social proxemics so as not to further stress the victims. On board, vehicle health monitoring would allow critical system parameters to be reported and broadcast allowing ad-hoc networking with other platforms in the region. The overall objective would be to optimize the use of resources in any region and to quickly allow multiple lifeguard teams converging on a mass marine casualty event to interact but without having to pre-register or have a priori knowledge of each other?s systems.