Mountain View, CA (September 11, 2024) — As part of its mission, the U.S. Navy, alongside other partner nations, maintains freedom of navigation and access to waterways around the world. Currently, the number of physical assets in key maritime areas is insufficient to maintain a critical flow of goods globally. However, with a network of unmanned and autonomous platforms to augment its more limited crewed assets, the Navy can maintain Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) more efficiently and effectively.
In mid-2023, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) partnered with Project Overmatch (the Navy’s program focused on connecting U.S. military sensors, personnel, and platforms as part of the Pentagon’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) effort) and the Naval Information Warfare Systems Command, Pacific (NIWC PAC) (which develops and maintains the connective tissue that supports a hybrid fleet) to proactively identify state-of-the-art commercial solutions that could build a database that allows unmanned systems to operate effectively in disconnected, denied, intermittent, and/or limited bandwidth (DDIL) environments. To achieve maximum operational effect, this Common Operational Database (COD) seeks to solve several technical challenges with edge computing that currently prevent the use of shared sensor data to support unified analysis/high-fidelity information computing within forward deployed devices, rather than within traditional IT enterprises. This integrated capability would substantively support mission autonomy for NIWC PAC’s Project Overmatch goals.
Delivering Impact
In January of 2024, DIU awarded three prototype agreements to vendors who demonstrated project capabilities:
Ditto provided a resilient worldview capable of driving broader DoD initiatives, such as Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2), reliably syncing and distributing critical data from autonomous vehicles to provide DoD personnel with a real-time operating picture to aid decision-making.
Syntiant provided performant and retrainable AI models at the edge for deployment across a heterogeneous fleet resulting in more effective unmanned systems.
HarperDB provided a comprehensive, scalable solution for the broadcast, collection, and analysis of real-time data ingest, ensuring stakeholders had access to both raw data and a custom user interface designed to aid in operational awareness.
All three vendors have been successful.
The vendors showed proof of concept via multiple government run test and evaluation (T&E) exercises, including Mission Autonomy Proving Grounds and a culminating event at Task Force 59 (TF-59) in Bahrain. From a technical perspective, COD: 1) provides a low SWAP (size, weight and power) solution that does not degrade or modify current operational practices, 2) collects and shares data in communications-denied environments to allow cross-vehicle collaborative autonomy to persist at the edge, and 3) is able to integrate into Fleet C2 systems and deployed autonomous platforms.
“The capability to enable scalable mission autonomy was proven in government-run test and evaluation exercises and will continue to be used and improved for the realization of the hybrid fleet,” said Mike Tall, Senior Science and Technology Manager (SSTM), Project Overmatch. “It was terrific working with these highly technically skilled, professional companies who executed successfully with demanding timelines and integration requirements of the DoD.”
During each exercise, COD was able to both articulate and showcase value for future operations, particularly in regards to expanding to crewed platforms in the future to enhance collaboration with our coalition partners.
DIU Program Manager and Navy Lieutenant Commander Al Williams noted that, “The combination of these capabilities will significantly improve maritime domain awareness / command & control (C2) in critical maritime DDIL environments as a key force enabler.”