UVARS: Unmanned Vehicle Autonomous Routing System Navy STTR FY2004 Sol No.: Navy STTR FY2004 Topic No.: N04-T003 Topic Title: UVARS: Unmanned Vehicle Autonomous Routing System Proposal No.: N045-003-0282 Firm: Scientific Systems Company, Inc 500 West Cummings Park - Ste 3000 Woburn, Massachusetts 01801 Contact: B. Ravichandran Phone: (781) 933-5355 Web Site: www.ssci.com Abstract: The objective of this project is to develop UVARS: Unmanned Vehicle Autonomous Routing System an automated path and mission planning for aerial platforms under dynamic conditions and constraints. UVARS is based on evolutionary algorithms for global optimization that accounts for factors such as terrain, the platform's dynamic maneuvering capabilities, minimize visibility to threats, and navigational constraints and will respond to a changing environment such as new threats/targets detected, changes in no-fly zones or rules of engagement, new mission tasks required, new target priorities, new prioritization between threat exposure and image quality requirements. Phase I will demonstrate prototype performance and Phase II will demonstrate operational performance. Commercial applications of the approach will also be investigated during the Phase I and fully developed during the Phase II. A candidate platform for project demonstration and Phase III transition will be the Tomahawk cruise missile (through PMA 281 - Cruise Missiles Command and Control Program), or through the Time Critical Strike FNC and/or Autonomous Operations FNC. Scientific Systems Company Inc. (SSCI) leads this proposal team that includes the Operations Research Department at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA as our academic partner and Boeing Mission Planning Systems in St. Louis MO as our industrial partner. Benefits: The development of autonomous route planning methods has application to many military and commercial domains. Potential areas include military and commercial decision aids where planning is important. Planning military missions, emergency medical and police response systems, robotics, space and underwater exploration are all potential applications where automated planning on a curved earth model would be beneficial. The initial Phase III transition plan includes migration of these capabilities within annual releases of the Tomahawk Planning System (TPS) first in Stand Alone Rapid Planning Mode (RPM), and then as the full Candidate Route Generator (CRG). Return