Implication of FORCEnet on coalition forces

The coalition navies of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom and the United States (AUSCANNZUKUS) are in a period of transformation. They are stepping out of the Industrial Age of warfare and into the Informational Age of warfare. Network Centric Warfare (NCW) is the emerging theory to accomplish this undertaking. NCW describes "the combination of strategies, emerging tactics, techniques, and procedures, and organizations that a fully or even partially networked force can employ to create a decisive war fighting advantage." 1 This theory is turned into a concept through Network Centric Operations (NCO) and implemented through the FORCEnet operational construct and architectural framework. The coalition navies are moving in a direction to develop and leverage information more effectively and efficiently. This will lead to an informational advantage that can be used as a combat multiplier to shape and control the environment, so as to dissuade, deter, and decisively defeat any enemy. This analysis was comprised of defining three TTCP AG-6 provided vignettes into ARENA model that captured Coalition ESG configurations at various FORCEnet levels. The results of the analysis demonstrated that enhanced FORCEnet capabilities such as FORCEnet Levels 2 and 4 would satisfy the capability gap for a needed network-centric ESG force that can effectively counter insurgency operations in Maritime warfare. Furthermore, the participating allied navies in the Coalition ESG should pursue acquisition strategies to upgrade their ship platforms in accordance with our recommendation which indicates that FORCEnet Level 2 is the best value.http://archive.org/details/implicationoffor109456926N

Proceedings of the 2004 ONR Decision-Support Workshop Series: Interoperability

In August of 1998 the Collaborative Agent Design Research Center (CADRC) of the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), approached Dr. Phillip Abraham of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) with the proposal for an annual workshop focusing on emerging concepts in decision-support systems for military applications. The proposal was considered timely by the ONR Logistics Program Office for at least two reasons. First, rapid advances in information systems technology over the past decade had produced distributed collaborative computer-assistance capabilities with profound potential for providing meaningful support to military decision makers. Indeed, some systems based on these new capabilities such as the Integrated Marine Multi-Agent Command and Control System (IMMACCS) and the Integrated Computerized Deployment System (ICODES) had already reached the field-testing and final product stages, respectively. Second, over the past two decades the US Navy and Marine Corps had been increasingly challenged by missions demanding the rapid deployment of forces into hostile or devastate dterritories with minimum or non-existent indigenous support capabilities. Under these conditions Marine Corps forces had to rely mostly, if not entirely, on sea-based support and sustainment operations. Particularly today, operational strategies such as Operational Maneuver From The Sea (OMFTS) and Sea To Objective Maneuver (STOM) are very much in need of intelligent, near real-time and adaptive decision-support tools to assist military commanders and their staff under conditions of rapid change and overwhelming data loads. In the light of these developments the Logistics Program Office of ONR considered it timely to provide an annual forum for the interchange of ideas, needs and concepts that would address the decision-support requirements and opportunities in combined Navy and Marine Corps sea-based warfare and humanitarian relief operations. The first ONR Workshop was held April 20-22, 1999 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Luis Obispo, California. It focused on advances in technology with particular emphasis on an emerging family of powerful computer-based tools, and concluded that the most able members of this family of tools appear to be computer-based agents that are capable of communicating within a virtual environment of the real world. From 2001 onward the venue of the Workshop moved from the West Coast to Washington, and in 2003 the sponsorship was taken over by ONR’s Littoral Combat/Power Projection (FNC) Program Office (Program Manager: Mr. Barry Blumenthal). Themes and keynote speakers of past Workshops have included: 1999: ‘Collaborative Decision Making Tools’ Vadm Jerry Tuttle (USN Ret.); LtGen Paul Van Riper (USMC Ret.);Radm Leland Kollmorgen (USN Ret.); and, Dr. Gary Klein (KleinAssociates) 2000: ‘The Human-Computer Partnership in Decision-Support’ Dr. Ronald DeMarco (Associate Technical Director, ONR); Radm CharlesMunns; Col Robert Schmidle; and, Col Ray Cole (USMC Ret.) 2001: ‘Continuing the Revolution in Military Affairs’ Mr. Andrew Marshall (Director, Office of Net Assessment, OSD); and,Radm Jay M. Cohen (Chief of Naval Research, ONR) 2002: ‘Transformation ... ’ Vadm Jerry Tuttle (USN Ret.); and, Steve Cooper (CIO, Office ofHomeland Security) 2003: ‘Developing the New Infostructure’ Richard P. Lee (Assistant Deputy Under Secretary, OSD); and, MichaelO’Neil (Boeing) 2004: ‘Interoperability’ MajGen Bradley M. Lott (USMC), Deputy Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command; Donald Diggs, Director, C2 Policy, OASD (NII

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in environmental biology: A Review

Acquiring information about the environment is a key step during each study in the field of environmental biology at different levels, from an individual species to community and biome. However, obtaining information about the environment is frequently difficult because of, for example, the phenological timing, spatial distribution of a species or limited accessibility of a particular area for the field survey. Moreover, remote sensing technology, which enables the observation of the Earth’s surface and is currently very common in environmental research, has many limitations such as insufficient spatial, spectral and temporal resolution and a high cost of data acquisition. Since the 1990s, researchers have been exploring the potential of different types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for monitoring Earth’s surface. The present study reviews recent scientific literature dealing with the use of UAV in environmental biology. Amongst numerous papers, short communications and conference abstracts, we selected 110 original studies of how UAVs can be used in environmental biology and which organisms can be studied in this manner. Most of these studies concerned the use of UAV to measure the vegetation parameters such as crown height, volume, number of individuals (14 studies) and quantification of the spatio-temporal dynamics of vegetation changes (12 studies). UAVs were also frequently applied to count birds and mammals, especially those living in the water. Generally, the analytical part of the present study was divided into following sections: (1) detecting, assessing and predicting threats on vegetation, (2) measuring the biophysical parameters of vegetation, (3) quantifying the dynamics of changes in plants and habitats and (4) population and behaviour studies of animals. At the end, we also synthesised all the information showing, amongst others, the advances in environmental biology because of UAV application. Considering that 33% of studies found and included in this review were published in 2017 and 2018, it is expected that the number and variety of applications of UAVs in environmental biology will increase in the future

Naval Research Program 2021 Annual Report

NPS NRP Annual ReportThe Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) Naval Research Program (NRP) is funded by the Chief of Naval Operations and supports research projects for the Navy and Marine Corps. The NPS NRP serves as a launch-point for new initiatives which posture naval forces to meet current and future operational warfighter challenges. NRP research projects are led by individual research teams that conduct research and through which NPS expertise is developed and maintained. The primary mechanism for obtaining NPS NRP support is through participation at NPS Naval Research Working Group (NRWG) meetings that bring together fleet topic sponsors, NPS faculty members, and students to discuss potential research topics and initiatives.Chief of Naval Operations (CNO)Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

U.S Naval Strategy in the 1990\u27s

The decade of the 1990s represents a distinctive period in American naval strategic thinking. Bounded on one side by the end of the Cold War in 1989-91 and on the other by the beginning of the era of the global war on terrorism after 11 September 2001, these were years in which the U.S. Navy of the 1990s found itself faced with a dramatically altered strategic situation. For the first time in at least four decades, the U.S. Navy had neither a peer nor a superior naval adversary; further, no credible naval adversary could be discerned in the foreseeable future.https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/usnwc-newport-papers/1026/thumbnail.jp

Annual Report 2014

This report highlights salient features and activities across the spectrum of NPS research activities conducted on behalf of both Navy and Marine Corps topic sponsors during the 2014 fiscal year. Each of the 90 research projects’ executive summary included herein outlines key results. While most of the summaries detail final results, some projects have multi-year project lengths and, therefore, progress to date is reported

Naval Research Program 2019 Annual Report

NPS NRP Annual ReportThe Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) Naval Research Program (NRP) is funded by the Chief of Naval Operations and supports research projects for the Navy and Marine Corps. The NPS NRP serves as a launch-point for new initiatives which posture naval forces to meet current and future operational warfighter challenges. NRP research projects are led by individual research teams that conduct research and through which NPS expertise is developed and maintained. The primary mechanism for obtaining NPS NRP support is through participation at NPS Naval Research Working Group (NRWG) meetings that bring together fleet topic sponsors, NPS faculty members, and students to discuss potential research topics and initiatives.Chief of Naval Operations (CNO)This research is supported by funding from the Naval Postgraduate School, Naval Research Program (PE 0605853N/2098). https://nps.edu/nrpChief of Naval Operations (CNO)Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

In Harm\u27s Way: The Continued Relevance of the U.S. Navy\u27s Forward Presence Mission in the Post-Cold War World

With the breakup of the Soviet Union, the United States Navy has seen the fleet shrink from nearly 600 ships in 1988 to 320 ships in 1999, with a planned reduction to 305 ships by 2004. While the fleet has been reduced by nearly 50 percent over the last decade, the deployment of U.S. naval forces has continued at near-Cold War levels. The result is a mismatch between the national security requirements that naval forces are called on to support, and the forces available to meet those requirements. Some have suggested that the traditional forward presence mission of the Navy-Marine Corps team is no longer relevant in the post-Cold War environment. Others suggest that virtual presence through space surveillance and global air power can replace the physical presence of naval forces. Still others have advocated a return to an isolationist policy, forgoing military presence altogether. Although U.S. naval forces are no longer required to counter the threat of Soviet aggression, possible peer or near-peer competitors, such as Russia and China, combined with emerging regional powers, require that the United States maintain forces in areas near U.S. interests. This thesis will examine the continued importance of maintaining a strong naval presence in the three principal areas of U.S. interest--the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf, and Northeast Asia--and the inability to meet U.S. national security requirements with proposed alternatives to forward presence. Also covered will be new systems and operational concepts of the Navy-Marine Corps team, and their importance to the forward presence mission

MODELLING VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT FOR ADVANCED NAVAL SIMULATION

This thesis proposes a new virtual simulation environment designed as element of an interoperable federation of simulator to support the investigation of complex scenarios over the Extended Maritime Framework (EMF). Extended Maritime Framework is six spaces environment (Underwater, Water surface, Ground, Air, Space, and Cyberspace) where parties involved in Joint Naval Operations act. The amount of unmanned vehicles involved in the simulation arise the importance of the Communication modelling, thus the relevance of Cyberspace. The research is applied to complex cases (one applied to deep waters and one to coast and littoral protection) as examples to validate this approach; these cases involve different kind of traditional assets (e.g. satellites, helicopters, ships, submarines, underwater sensor infrastructure, etc.) interact dynamically and collaborate with new autonomous systems (i.e. AUV, Gliders, USV and UAV). The use of virtual simulation is devoted to support validation of new concepts and investigation of collaborative engineering solutions by providing a virtual representation of the current situation; this approach support the creation of dynamic interoperable immersive framework that could support training for Man in the Loop, education and tactical decision introducing the Man on the Loop concepts. The research and development of the Autonomous Underwater Vehicles requires continuous testing so a time effective approach can result a very useful tool. In this context the simulation can be useful to better understand the behaviour of Unmanned Vehicles and to avoid useless experimentations and their costs finding problems before doing them. This research project proposes the creation of a virtual environment with the aim to see and understand a Joint Naval Scenario. The study will be focusing especially on the integration of Autonomous Systems with traditional assets; the proposed simulation deals especially with collaborative operation involving different types of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV), Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV) and UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). The author develops an interoperable virtual simulation devoted to present the overall situation for supervision considering also the sensor capabilities, communications and mission effectiveness that results dependent of the different asset interaction over a complex heterogeneous network. The aim of this research is to develop a flexible virtual simulation solution as crucial element of an HLA federation able to address the complexity of Extended Maritime Framework (EMF). Indeed this new generation of marine interoperable simulation is a strategic advantage for investigating the problems related to the operational use of autonomous systems and to finding new ways to use them respect to different scenarios. The research deal with the creation of two scenarios, one related to military operations and another one on coastal and littoral protection where the virtual simulation propose the overall situation and allows to navigate into the virtual world considering the complex physics affecting movement, perception, interaction and communication. By this approach, it becomes evident the capability to identify, by experimental analysis within the virtual world, the new solutions in terms of engineering and technological configuration of the different systems and vehicles as well as new operational models and tactics to address the specific mission environment. The case of study is a maritime scenario with a representation of heterogeneous network frameworks that involves multiple vehicles both naval and aerial including AUVs, USVs, gliders, helicopter, ships, submarines, satellite, buoys and sensors. For the sake of clarity aerial communications will be represented divided from underwater ones. A connection point for the latter will be set on the keel line of surface vessels representing communication happening via acoustic modem. To represent limits in underwater communications, underwater signals have been considerably slowed down in order to have a more realistic comparison with aerial ones. A maximum communication distance is set, beyond which no communication can take place. To ensure interoperability the HLA Standard (IEEE 1516 evolved) is adopted to federate other simulators so to allow its extensibility for other case studies. Two different scenarios are modelled in 3D visualization: Open Water and Port Protection. The first one aims to simulate interactions between traditional assets in Extended Maritime Framework (EMF) such as satellite, navy ships, submarines, NATO Research Vessels (NRVs), helicopters, with new generation unmanned assets as AUV, Gliders, UAV, USV and the mutual advantage the subjects involved in the scenario can have; in other word, the increase in persistence, interoperability and efficacy. The second scenario models the behaviour of unmanned assets, an AUV and an USV, patrolling a harbour to find possible threats. This aims to develop an algorithm to lead patrolling path toward an optimum, guaranteeing a high probability of success in the safest way reducing human involvement in the scenario. End users of the simulation face a graphical 3D representation of the scenario where assets would be represented. He can moves in the scenario through a Free Camera in Graphic User Interface (GUI) configured to entitle users to move around the scene and observe the 3D sea scenario. In this way, players are able to move freely in the synthetic environment in order to choose the best perspective of the scene. The work is intended to provide a valid tool to evaluate the defencelessness of on-shore and offshore critical infrastructures that could includes the use of new technologies to take care of security best and preserve themselves against disasters both on economical and environmental ones