An effective transfer of autonomous control technology

Northrop Grumman Corporation, Oceanic and Naval Systems (NG-O&NS) has built unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) with limited levels of autonomous control for years. Facing requirements of more complex and complete levels of autonomy, we searched for existing technologies that would provide an affordable, minimal complexity, testable, reusable approach. Through discussions with the Applied Research Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University (ARL/PSU), it became apparent that existing NG-ON&S vehicle guidance and control technologies could be structured within the ARL/PSU prototype intelligent controller (PIC), which was originally developed under ONR funding. NG-O&NS forged a close relationship with ARL/PSU as we mapped our autonomous control concept to the PIC architecture and developed a prototype autonomous sortie controller (ASC). NG-O&NS successfully conducted an in-water test series demonstrating the ASC onboard the Naval Underseas Warfare Center (NUWC) 21UUV in the Spring of 1999.