Publications

Organizations

Publications

This page is meant to be a storehouse for publications that reflect activities of interest to AUVAC and its members. If you have publications that should be added to this list please let us know and we will include them.

Guidance for developing Maritime Unmanned Systems (MUS) capability

July 9, 2013 via - NATO

  Guidance for Developing Maritime Unmanned Systems (MUS) Capability

This guidance aims to inform the capability development of Maritime Unmanned Systems (MUS), broadening beyond that currently being exploited by UAV into Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUV) and Underwater Surface Vehicles (USV). It covers likely attributes and tasks for MUS, and discusses some of the challenges in developing this capability.

Definition

An MUS is defined as an Unmanned System operating in the maritime environment (subsurface, surface, air) whose primary component is at least one unmanned vehicle. A UUV is defined as a self-propelled submersible whose operation is either fully autonomous (pre-programmed or real-time adaptive mission control) or under minimal supervisory control. They are further sub-divided in 4 vehicles classes (man-portable, Light Weight Vehicle (LWV) Heavy Weight Vehicle (HWV), Large Vehicle Class (LVC).

An USV is defined as a self-propelled surface vehicle whose operation is either fully autonomous (pre-programmed or real-time adaptive mission control) or under minimal supervisory control. They are further sub-divided in 4 vehicles classes (X-Class, Harbour Class, Snorkeler Class, Fleet Class).

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Automated Fault Diagnosis for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

April 30, 2013 via - IEEE OES

Abstract

This paper reports our results in using a discrete fault diagnosis system, Livingstone 2 (L2), on-board an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), Autosub 6000. Due to the difficulty of communicating between an AUV and its operators, AUVs can benefit particularly from increased autonomy, of which fault diagnosis is a part. However, they are also restricted in their power consumption. We show that a discrete diagnosis system can detect and identify a number of faults that would threaten the health of an AUV, while also being sufficiently lightweight computationally to be deployed on-board the vehicle. Since AUVs also often have their missions designed just before deployment in response to data from previous missions, a diagnosis system that monitors the software as well as the hardware of the system is also very useful. We show how a software diagnosis model can be built automatically that can be integrated with the hardware model to diagnose the complete system. We show empirically that on Autosub 6000 this allows us to diagnose real vehicle faults that could potentially lead to the loss of the vehicle.

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Law and Ethics for Autonomous Weapon Systems Why a Ban Won’t Work and How the Laws of War Can

April 9, 2013 via - Hoover Institue

Public debate is heating up over the future development of autonomous weapon systems.1 Some concerned critics portray that future, often invoking science-fiction imagery, as a plain choice between a world in which those systems are banned outright and a world of legal void and ethical collapse on the battlefield.2 Yet an outright ban on autonomous weapon systems, even if it could be made effective, trades whatever risks autonomous weapon systems might pose in war for the real, if less visible, risk of failing to develop forms of automation that might make the use of force more precise and less harmful for civilians caught near it. Grounded in a more realistic assessment of technology—acknowledging what is known and what is yet unknown—as well as the interests of the many international and domestic actors involved, this paper outlines a practical alternative: the gradual evolution of codes of conduct based on traditional legal and ethical principles governing weapons and warfare.

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