Under SBIR 20.1 Topic N201-070, the US Navy is seeking solution concepts related to enhanced sensor and autonomy processing in support of unmanned vehicle mission operations. More specifically, under technical area 1, the US Navy is interested in sensor and autonomy capabilities related to autonomous detection and analysis of underwater cables by unmanned underwater vehicles such as the LDUUV Snakehead Platform. Robust underwater perception has long been a critical technology gap in the transition from ROVs to semi-autonomous and fully autonomous platforms for underwater robotic solutions. For many years it was the lack of adequate low-cost sensor and processor technologies that posed the most pressing technological challenges. Over the last five years this landscape has shifted with an abundance of low-cost inertial measurement sensors, acoustic and light-based vision systems, and embedded GPU processors. While the latest underwater perception sensors can provide the sensing and processing capabilities needed to help advance underwater autonomy, they fall short of providing robust information solutions that abstract the physical measurements from mission critical information. Numurus proposes a system-of-systems smart sensor along with a software framework that supports a library of onboard adaptable mission autonomy and detection capabilities for the state mission. This solution combines existing technology platforms in the fields of smart sensors, AI, autonomy and robotics in order to rapidly develop and demonstrate an adaptable smart perception sensor for the stated mission of locating, tracking, surveying and detecting potential damage on undersea cables from the US Navy LDUUV. The solution would include both a pre/post operator software interface and a vehicle control system. A variety of adaptable mission capabilities such as cable location, tracking, and buried cable mitigation will be implemented. For localized potential damage on exposed cable additional capabilities include detection, classification, localization, and survey data would be available. All of the described software would share on-board CPU/GPU resources management by an overall task prioritization software governor.
Benefit: A solution based on the proposed smart sensor and mission autonomy solution would fill a significant technology gap across many robotic autonomy applications, not only in the underwater domain. The proposed mission library framework supports rapid adaption of new mission processing capabilities based on the end users needs. The on-board communications framework allows rapid adaption to specific vehicle interface communications protocols. Initial variants of the proposed solution would have immediate application to both underwater ROV and AUV operations. As both Numurus LLC and SeeByte are focused on developing commercial products toward this end, all aspects of the project offer direct commercialization opportunities that both companies would explore.
Keywords: Underwater sensing, Underwater sensing, Autonomy, Smart sensors, UUV, AI, Edge processing, Robot
