Using a Mechanical Whale to Test Automatic Whale Blow Detection with Applications to Offshore Wind Development
R. S. Eaton; J. C. Prisco; J. J. Everson; J. E. Riedel; Y. M. Randall Paper presented at the 2024 Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, Texas (May 2024) Marine mammals have the potential to be harassed by exposure to loud sounds caused by survey or construction activity and even killed by collisions with fast moving vessels. […]
Challenges and Progress in Predictive Maintenance of Long-Endurance & Long-Range Uncrewed Platforms
Kenneth Lu, Sanja Cvijic, Arjuna Balasuriya AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2024, San Diego, CA (April 2024) Today’s uncrewed platforms are typically operated by humans using remote control to guide every detailed aspect of a mission. However, as missions become more complex, there are many scenarios (particularly in the marine and ground domains) in which operators are unable […]
Collaborative Autonomy Meets the Real World
David Koelle AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2024, San Diego, CO (April 2024) The physical world is being increasingly served by autonomy, including self-driving taxi cabs, autonomous mining vehicles, and robots in warehouses and hospitals. While this is certainly a significant step in technical advancement, these robots and vehicles all operate independently. The ability for robots to work […]
Challenges and Progress in Swarm Autonomy
David Koelle AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2022, Denver, CO (April 2022) The growing use of uncrewed and increasingly autonomous vehicles across civilian and military applications starts to establish a future in which multiple vehicles can work together to achieve tasks. To bring these multi-robot teams, or swarms, into physical existence to aid human workers, several challenges must […]
Challenges and Progress in Behavior-Based Adaptive Autonomy
Arjuna Balasuriya, Tyler Mayer, and Gerald Fry AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2023, Denver, CO (May 2023) Today’s uncrewed platforms are typically operated by humans using remote control to guide every detailed aspect of a mission. However, as missions become more complex, there are many scenarios (particularly in the marine, ground, and space domains) in which operators are […]
Hybrid-AI Approach to Health Monitoring of Vehicle Control System
Kenneth Lu1, Margarita Hiett1, Ernest Vincent Cross1, Michael Reposa1, Aaron Kain2, Erik Davis2 Proceedings of The 70th Annual Reliability & Maintainability Symposium (RAMS®) (January 2024) Advances in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning AI/ML have demonstrated enormous potential in improving and optimizing condition-based maintenance processes. In this paper, we present novel research that leverages the power […]
Assured Onboard Autonomy Architecture for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles
Balasuriya, A. AUVSI XPONENTIAL 2021 (May 2021) In this paper, we present an adaptive autonomy architecture which considers the uncertainties introduced by autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) onboard sensors, as well as the challenges introduced by dynamic underwater environments. By addressing these considerations, our architecture provides AUVs with additional capabilities that enable a wider range of […]
Applied Co-Creation Approach to the Design and Development of a Socially Assistive Robot System to Support Hardware and Software Accessibility and Acceptability Needs of Individuals with AD/ADRD and Their Caregivers
Kingsley, C.1, Stout, A.1, Herrera, N.1, Mittelman, M.2, and Niehaus, J.1 Presented at the 2020 Alzheimer’s Association International Conference Technology and Dementia Pre-Conference, Virtual (July 2020) Background: Commercially available socially-assistive robots (SARs) serve as a promising new assistive technology platform for individuals with early and middle stage AD/ADRD and their caregivers, yet often fail to address the specific […]
User-Centered Hardware and Software Interaction Design Approach to Enhance Accessibility and Utility of Embodied Social Robots for Older Populations
Kingsley, C., Stout, A., Herrera, N., and Niehaus, J. Presented at the Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE) Conference, Virtual (July 2020) Rapid developments in artificial intelligence, machine learning, voice interfaces, and robotics, have enabled consumer social and entertainment robots to flood the market, with sales forecast to reach 4.22 million units by 2025. Notably, […]
Technology in the Wild: An Interdisciplinary Discussion on the Intersection of Autonomous Systems and Wildlife Conservation
Kingsley, C. Moderated panel session at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) 2020 XPONENTIAL Conference, Virtual (October 2020). Autonomous technologies are becoming more scalable, reliable, and ruggedized, fortunately at a critical time in which wildlife and environmental conservation is growing in need, scale, and emphasis. As such, autonomous technologies, including unmanned air and […]
Highly Targeted Non-Lethal Predator Control Approach using Intelligent Prey Decoys Equipped with Aversive Stimuli to Protect Endangered Species from Predation and Provide Data Insights
Kingsley, C., Nussear, K., King, M., and Jenkins, M. Presented at the Wildlife Society 2020 Annual Conference (October 2020) Approximately 42% of threatened or endangered species are at risk due to invasive species. Invasive species exacerbate threats on native species in a variety of ways, including habitat disruption, outcompeting for resources, causing or carrying disease, […]
Drone Swarms: A Transformational Technology
Lynn, S., Koelle, D., and Wronski, R. Aerospace & Defense Technology, May:14-17 2020. Drone swarms are, in every sense, a transformational technology. They can replace humans in dangerous or hostile environments. In sufficient numbers, they can collect information from multiple locations and directions, integrating it to form insights not otherwise available. That information can inform […]
An Ecologically Founded Design for a Targeted Non-Lethal Predator Aversion Device to Protect Agassiz Desert Tortoises from Depredation
Kingsley, C., and Jenkins, M. The 2019 Desert Tortoise Symposium, Tucson, AZ (February 2019) Desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii), currently listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), are experiencing depredation at unprecedented and unnatural rates due to the growing presence of human-subsidized predators in desert tortoise habitat, namely ravens (Corvus corax) and coyotes (Canis […]
Software Adaptation for an Unmanned Undersea Vehicle
Pfeffer, A.1, Wu, C.1, Fry, G.1, Lu, K.1, Marotta, S.1, Reposa, M.1, Shi, Y.2, Satish Kumar, T.2, Knoblock, C.2, Parker, D.3, Muhammad, I.3, and Novakovic, C.3 IEEE Software, Vol. 36, No. 2 (March/April 2019) Unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) are designed to carry out challenging missions in changing environments. To maximize their effectiveness, these vehicles should adapt to system failures […]
Quantitative Assessment of Image Quality for Maritime Surveillance Applications
Eaton, R.1, Gingrich, I.1, and Irvine, J.2 SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing, Baltimore, MD (May 2019) Analysis and measurement of perceived image quality has been an active area of research for decades. Although physical measurements of image parameters often correlate with human perceptions, user-centric approaches have focused on the observer’s ability to perform certain tasks with the […]
Autonomous Sounding Observations
Balasuriya, A. Invited Talk at the 2nd International Conference on Oceanography of the Bay of Bengal, Colombo, Sri Lanka (January 2018) This talk presents the autonomous mobile marine meteorological system developed at Charles River Analytics called, Smart Weather Instruments (SWIMS). SWIMS samples the air-sea boundary layer and sends real-time data to remote stations on land. SWIMS […]
Adapting Autonomous Ocean Vehicle Software Systems to Changing Environments
Fry, G., Pfeffer, A., Lu, K., Wu, C., Marotta, S., and Reposa, M. To be presented at OCEANS 2018 Conference and Expedition, Charleston, SC (October 2018). Software systems that can adapt to new requirements not only survive longer but also save overhead otherwise incurred from manually re-writing the software. Most software systems do not have […]
Matching Requirements to Means using Meaning
Hookway, S., Gorman, J., and Rosenberg, B. In Ground/Air Multisensor Interoperability, Integration, and Networking for Persistent ISR IX (Vol. 10635, p. 1063513), International Society for Optics and Photonics (May 2018). The ability to collect an ever-increasing amount of information is outpacing analysts’ ability to interpret and communicate that information in a timely manner. The Army Research Laboratory’s […]
Maritime Border Security using Sensors, Processing, and Platforms to Detect Dark Vessels
Eaton, R., German, S., and Balasuriya, A. IEEE International Symposium on Technologies for Homeland Security, Woburn, MA, (October 2018) Maritime security is critical to national prosperity, but with a large area to be secured and limited resources available, our current maritime situational awareness is not sufficient to secure our borders. This challenge is compounded by the […]
Unmanned Vehicle Onboard Autonomy for Adaptive Ocean Sampling
Balasuriya, A. Invited talk at Naval Research Lab, Stennis Space Center (December 2017) Charles River Analytics is developing a range of technologies to improve the onboard intelligence of unmanned vehicles. In this talk, I will present some of our products developed for marine unmanned systems improving their onboard intelligence. These autonomy modules are implemented on […]
Development of an Autonomous Mobile Marine Meteorological Station – SWIMS
Balasuriya, A., Pennington, T., Scudere, T., McCann, Thayer, R., and Wronski, R. Proceedings of IEEE OCEANS 2017, Anchorage, AK (September 2017). Currently, atmospheric data is collected at the air-sea boundary layer by releasing radiosondes from surface ships or by mounting sensors to aircraft. Sea surface data is measured by either remote sensing or by attaching sensors […]
A Multi-modal Interface for Natural Operator Teaming with Autonomous Robots (MINOTAUR)
Kane, S., McGurgan, K., Voshell, M., Monnier, C., German, S., and Ost, A. Presented at the 8th International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE 2017), Los Angeles, CA (July 2017) Dismounted squads face logistical problems, including the management of physical burdens in complex operating environments. Autonomous unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) can help transport equipment […]
A Mission Library for Mission Plan Management
Kane, S., and von Kelsch, E. Presented at the 8th International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE 2017), Los Angeles, CA (July 2017) When Navy pilots create a new mission plan, they frequently build off of prior missions. Specifically, they duplicate a “master” mission plan that contains official settings, operational specifications, and other information […]
Applications of Sonar Software Tools for Security and Defense – Mosaicking for Hull Inspection, Non-GPS Navigation, and Low-cost Bathymetry Tools
Balasuriya, A. and Eaton, R. Teledyne Marine Technology Workshop, San Diego, CA (October 2015) Teledyne marine sensors provide data that is valuable for many defense and security missions, from navigation to mine countermeasures to maintenance. In this talk, we will highlight work that uses a variety of Teledyne sensors, including multibeam imaging sonars, multibeam profilers, […]
An Intelligent Scheduling Framework for Market-based Optimization of Sensor Resources to Improve SSA
Stouch, D., Freedman, S., and Ramser, N. Presented at the Space Situational Awareness (SSA) conference, Kihei, HI (September 2015). As the space environment becomes increasingly cluttered, the Space Surveillance Network (SSN) has the difficult challenge of tracking the hundreds of thousands of items in the space object catalog that might affect US space operations. The […]
Increasing the Transparency of Unmanned Systems: Applications of Ecological Interface Design
Kilgore, R. and Voshell, M. Accepted to Lecture Notes in Computer Science 8526:378-389, and presented at The 16th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII), Crete, Greece (June 2014). This paper describes ongoing efforts to address the challenges of supervising teams of heterogeneous unmanned vehicles through the use of demonstrated Ecological Interface Design (EID) principles. We first review the EID […]
A Generalized Extended Kalman Filter Implementation for the Robot Operating System
Moore, T. and Stouch, D. Presented at the 13th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS 13), Padova, Italy (July 2014) Accurate state estimation for a mobile robot often requires the fusion of data from multiple sensors. Software that performs sensor fusion should therefore support the inclusion of a wide array of heterogeneous sensors. This […]
Rapid Assessment of Natural Disaster Effects using Autonomous Aircraft
Stouch, D., Moore, T., and Johnson, J. Proceedings of the 82nd Military Operations Research Society (MORS) Symposium, Infrastructure Analysis, Protection and Recovery (IAP&R) working group, Alexandria, VA (June 2014) Large-scale natural disasters have the potential to create loss of life and property on a large scale. Responding to these incidents is a complex process involving […]
