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For ten days early this summer, Naval Sea Systems Command Warfare Center Keyport (NWCK) division hosted the sixth Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Fest 2005, held from June 6-16, 2005. A primary goal for AUV Fest 2005 - sponsored by the Office of Naval Research (ONR); Commander, Naval Meteorology and Oceanographic Command (CNMOC); and Commander, Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) - was to demonstrate AUV systems emerging from the Future Naval Capabilities programs for Organic Mine Countermeasures and Autonomous Operations. ONR Program Manager for Ocean Engineering and Marine Systems, Dr. Tom Swean, said AUV Fests are an excellent way to help advance the fairly new science of undersea robotics. "ONR started investing in unmanned underwater vehicle technology probably about 1991. After a few years, there were enough efforts going on that were starting to gain some maturity, where we were put- ting things in the water. We thought at that time that it would be a good idea to try and bring the community together at a location periodically to kind of look and see what the state of the art is." AUVs serve a variety of mis- sions ranging from locating mine fields, to intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and force protec- tion, to mapping of the undersea environment. AUV Fest 2005 was the largest in-water demonstration event for unmanned vehicles ever conducted, according to Steve Stuart, NWCK event coordinator, both in participation and in the number of technologies demonstrated. In all, there were 168 vehicle team members, more than 200 observers, and approximately 60 test-support personnel who participated in testing AUVs, and supporting tech- nologies. "The demonstrations addressed capabilities applicable to all nine UUV [Unmanned Undersea Vehicle] mission areas addressed in the 2004 update to the Navy UUV Master Plan, " said Stuart. COL William Schopfel (USMC, Ret.), ONR Research Test Director, said, "Being able to test so many technolo- gies at once in one area helps to improve the acquisition of these technologies for the Fleet." The objectives includ- ed showing support of mine countermeasure missions, and demonstrating the interoperable communication of data and mission status among various unmanned vehicle systems with a central command node. Stuart said that communication issues were one of the major focal points of AUV Fest 2005. "One of the primary challenges for AUV developers is to adhere to a set of common commu- nication standards," he said. AUV Fest was replete with examples in which communication advancements were hailed as technological advances in the AUV community. Among the advancements were cooperative behavior among multiple AUVs, and communication from the AUVs with a common command and control node oper- ated by the military forces in the field. Another was the success of the Collaborative Undersea Range Architecture for Test/Training & Experimentation/Evaluation (T2E2) (CURATE). The CURATE implementation gave a glimpse of both the reality of merging a Test and Evaluation (T&E) event with a training event, and enabling the "test anywhere, test anytime" vision. Stuart explained that CURATE was used in a test and training exercise lasting eight days in which the goal was to integrate environmental and intelligence data, real and simulated AUV/UUV assets, and operational units in a battlespace preparation and mission planning test. This exercise demonstrated remote and distributed T2E2 capability. The Navy's SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team ONE (SDVT-1) in Hawaii received real, virtual, and con- structive data from the Mid-sized Autonomous Research Vehicle, the Solar AUV, the Hydrographic USW Craft, and the simulated 21-in. UUV from which to plan a mis- 22 MTR September 2005 New Tech on Tap at AUV Fest ‘05 MTR#2 (17-32).qxd 8/30/2005 5:07 PM Page 22
