Autonomous vehicle programs and applications at SPAWAR Systems Center

Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center-San Diego (SSC-SD) is the Navy's research, development, test and evaluation, engineering, and fleet support center for command and control, communications, ocean surveillance, and the integration of those systems which overarch multiple platforms. This provides a unique perspective for the development of autonomous vehicle applications encompassing all types of systems: air, ground, and undersea. The role of these vehicle systems and their integration is of growing importance as part of the overall need for consistent situational awareness. Not only can they act as sensor delivery platforms, they can also provide a means of communication between a variety of disparate systems, creating a dynamic interoperable connectivity to a worldwide information grid. A variety of autonomous systems and their roles will be discussed including land robots for security, unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) for surveillance, and unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) for data collection and communications.