NSWC PCD, HII reach R&D agreement through unmanned threat detection and intervention system

Photo By Jeremy Roman | Huntington Ingalls Industries' Proteus unmanned surface vessel (USV) used for testing and development of autonomy capabilities debuts on May 2021. The 27-foot Proteus USV was outfitted with Sea Machines Robotics’ SM300 autonomy system and completed a successful demonstration on Friday, May 14 off the coast of Panama City, Fla. (courtesy photo)  

PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA, UNITED STATES

03.18.2022

Story by Jeremy Roman 

Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division

For the first time ever, Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division (NSWC PCD) and Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) have entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) entitled Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV)-Based Threat Detection and Intervention System on February 20, 2022.

A CRADA, which is one of the tools that fall under Technology Transfer (T2), occurs between one or more federal laboratories and one or more non-federal parties where the federal lab can commit resources such as personnel, facilities, equipment, intellectual property, or other resources—but not funds—to the non-federal party. It allows the federal government to license technologies to private industry, academia, and state and local government while also allowing the CRADA partner to provide funds to the federal lab.

“Allowing private industry to license federal technologies is good stewardship of taxpayer money and increases development of commercial technologies, which supports the national defense and economy,” said NSWC PCD Technology Transfer Manager Paige George. “The benefit to the partner is access to federal resources which could lead to future partnerships/projects/first-come-first-serve access to the technology portfolio, relationships, etc. The benefit to the government is agility because the time and cost it takes for the government to take a program from start to finish in most cases is much more expensive and time consuming than having a company come in and license a technology and manufacture on a large scale.”

The U.S. Navy technology in this cooperative agreement is called “Threat Tracker,” which is an autonomous threat detection system developed by a small team of engineers and scientists within NSWC PCD’s Coastal and Maritime Security branch. Threat Tracker is an autonomous, multi-platform threat detection system that uses radar and sensor technologies coupled with video analytics and machine learning algorithms to detect, track and classify potential threats. This system will be integrated with HII’s advanced unmanned surface vehicle to provide a fully autonomous USV escort capable of detecting and stopping a wide variety of threats.

“What I enjoy most about the CRADA, is being able to use assets that my R&D [research and development] budget would otherwise never have access to,” said Jeremy Johnson, Threat Tracker project manager. “The CRADA allows Threat Tracker to not only leverage the latest and greatest autonomous platforms but also provide the opportunity to rapidly integrate our system onto the USV, which will help us to demonstrate how Threat Tracker will be utilized in the future of the fleet. This combining of resources enhances the R&D efforts and capabilities of our system for a faster transition to the warfighter.”

HII echoes similar sentiment.

“One of the reasons HII has invested in USV autonomous and artificial intelligence technology is to support the Navy’s distributed maritime operations,” said Senior Director of Technology at HII’s Unmanned Systems Business Group Brian McKeon. “We’re excited to collaborate with NSWC PCD to further enhance Threat Tracker by merging the capabilities of both organizations.”

“At NSWC PCD, we are committed to ensure every effort here results in warfighting dominance in the littoral battlespace as well as to responsibly steward every resource we have been trusted with,” said Daniel Kucik, NSWC PCD Littoral and Mine Warfare Unmanned Systems director. “Maximizing the partnerships and collaborating together in these types of agreements allow us to achieve both of these goals.”

The Threat Tracker system has been assigned a U.S. Navy case number meaning it is on the road to earning a patent but no patent license agreement has been developed as of yet.

“One of the goals for a CRADA is to license a federal technology to the non-federal partner, but that doesn’t happen in all cases. Sometimes we just share equipment, personnel or other resources with a partner,” George said. “Ensuring every T2 agreement is within lawful bounds while maximizing efforts, these partnerships are an excellent way to collaborate with the private sector, as well as provide opportunities to license Navy technology!”

• Date Taken: 03.18.2022
• Date Posted: 03.21.2022 12:09
• Story ID: 416752
• Location: PANAMA CITY, FLORIDA, US