Assessment of Nightime Airborne Visual ASW Capability
Abstract
The United States Navy (USN) and United States Coast Guard (USCG) are shifting toward the application and use of unmanned systems to provide value to their perspective mission sets through a coordinated range of operational diversity. This research effort sought to assess the feasibility of using commercially available small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) alongside standard imaging sensors to increase the situational awareness of the maritime fleet for subsurface threats and anti-submarine warfare at night. Three lines of effort were pursued by the research team: the first two were unclassified, dealing with detection of whales, and the third line of effort was classified, processing real field data, and is included as a supplemental. The two unclassified efforts affixed commercially available imaging sensors to both manned and unmanned aircraft with the goal of detecting whales at night utilizing bioluminescence. Both fixed wing and rotary sUAS's were compared as the flight platform with affixed red, green, blue (RGB) and multispectral imaging sensors. Many challenges were identified and overcome including the reduction of light pollution from the environment and aircraft, approval for sUAS beyond visual line of sight operations at night, and complications with image elongation. The final determination was that rotary sUAS systems with the MicaSense RedEdge-P was the optimal platform for capturing subsurface bioluminescent transmission at night when launched from a moving platform. Include supplements.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2023
- Accession Number
- AD1213283
Entities
People
- Justin P. Goff
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School