Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs): A Look at Coast Guard Needs to Close Performance Gaps and Enhance Current Mission Performance

Abstract

The Coast Guard has declared its intentions to exploit emerging technologies as it moves toward its vision of the Coast Guard in the year 2020. Attaining this vision requires the appropriate integration of technology as part of the solution to close gaps in mission performance. For this to happen, the Coast Guard must make concerted and deliberate efforts to exploit technology, moving effectively from ideation through development, acquisition, implementation, and life-cycle support. The role of the Research and Development (R&D) Center in exploiting technology is to anticipate future needs, create ideas, and insert new technologies. As a platform for various sensors, the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) is one such technology with the potential to close the gaps in Coast Guard performance as well as enhance current mission capabilities. This paper addresses the Coast Guard's AUV needs for specific mission areas. The variety and unique nature of Coast Guard missions add a high degree of complexity to technological solutions. In a world where high complexity often equals high cost, development does not always follow a path that resolves the issues encountered by the Coast Guard. By working to articulate its needs now, the Coast Guard hopes to influence AUV development in such a way that off-the-shelf items eventually can meet its operational needs. Several areas show that AUV developments are already taking this path. AUV complexity can be addressed through the ever-reducing costs of computing ability, modularization, sensor packaging, communication networking, and miniaturization. The following mission areas are addressed in this paper: Fisheries Management, Port Safety and Security, and Law Enforcement. For each mission area, an AUV application is described that could meet Coast Guard needs for that particular mission.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 2006
Accession Number
ADA450814

Entities

People

  • Scot T. Tripp

Organizations

  • United States Coast Guard Research & Development Center

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Autonomy
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Human Systems
  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes
  • Sensors

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Authentication
  • Autonomous Underwater Vehicles
  • Coast Guard
  • Collision Avoidance
  • Costs
  • Data Transmission
  • Detection
  • Detectors
  • Identification
  • Images
  • Law Enforcement
  • Navigation
  • Reliability
  • Security
  • Underwater Vehicles
  • Unmanned Vehicles
  • Vehicles

Readers

  • Maritime Security/Maritime Homeland Security
  • Systems Analysis and Design
  • Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Autonomous Capabilities and Mission Reconnaissance.