MinAu Planning System
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The MinAu Planning System is an advanced multi-vehicle mission planning, scheduling, and response system for the maritime environment that incorporates initial automated route planning and sensor tasking with autonomous onboard response systems. Orbit Logic and the Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles (RECUV) at the University of Colorado have integrated COTS software with current research in unmanned systems to develop an architecture capable of supporting cooperative operations for groups of assets with varied capabilities and available sensors. This includes a unique data-sharing solution that allows efficient communication between assets while respecting the onboard capabilities of each asset.
System-Level Process Flow and Data Exchange MinAu addresses the current need for mission planning with autonomous, cooperative, multi-vehicle systems in dynamic environments with a combination of comprehensive up-front mission planning and onboard autonomous response capabilities. Initial planning outputs collection route plans and schedules for all assets, and the onboard Autonomous Planning System (APS) allows reactions to new information or adverse conditions encountered during the mission (water currents, degraded communication capabilities, etc.), including communication with other assets to assist in any planned response.
Area Target Gridding, Collection Planning, and Simulated Execution The MinAu solution includes collaboration with Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific (NIWC-PAC) in San Diego. Our system is being integrated with their SeaRover UUVs for maturation and testing in two primary mission scenarios. In the first, MinAu is integrated into the Heterogeneous Autonomous Mobile Maritime Expeditionary Robots (HAMMER) system in which UUVs perform collaborative ocean floor bottom mapping, a USV Surface Craft acts as a mothership for UUV deployment and recovery, and a rotorcraft UAV acts as a data ferry to communicate data between the UUVs and the mothership. The second mission is a collaborative patrol/detect/track mission in which MinAu coordinates UUVs to locate and maintain custody of other underwater vessels. For both these missions, MinAu is capable of initial offline mission planning and scheduling as well as onboard planning to revise route plans and schedules to enable intelligent cooperation in response to changing mission conditions, such as to start following a newly detected underwater vessel or to periodically surface to communicate with the UAV data ferry asset.
MinAu Onboard Dynamics Simulation BlueROV2 |
Product Information
MinAu Data Sheet |