Lobster
Abstract
The undersea domain has significant importance to national security and military operations. Fiber optic cables, military seabed infrastructure, mines, submarines, unmanned vehicles and oil and gas infrastructure are all within this potentially contested environment. Yet it is a challenging domain in which to operate due to extreme water pressures, restricted communications, ever changing bottom environments, marine fouling and corrosion. The Lobster program seeks to improve U.S. operations in this domain by enabling underwater robotic systems significantly ahead of the state of the art. These robotic systems would be able to execute inspection, characterization, repair, manipulation, recharging, data exfiltration, re-tasking and other high value services without the need for continuous human control and high risk surface ship launch and recovery. Key Lobster technical challenges include scene recognition through visual and acoustic modalities, autonomous behaviors, environmental robustness, vehicle endurance, universality for all unmanned underwater systems, energy storage and interaction with the maritime domain. The anticipated transition is to the Navy.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Accomplishment
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2019
- Source ID
- 2b6fdbfc15c29d1ee05839929ad5d1dd
Related Documents
- Root: TACTICAL TECHNOLOGY