A member of a National Academy of Sciences Transportation Research Board (TRP) told a congressional panel this week that the Coast Guard has only made partial progress on recommendations it made in a 2020 report on how the service can higher leverage unmanned systems.
“Congress requested a study of the Coast Guard’s existing and prospective use of unmanned systems to meet its many critical missions. Through the course of that study, the committee recognized the worth that such technologies could offer the Coast Guard. The committee made five recommendations related to unmanned systems,” Sean Pribyl, member of the Committee on Coast Guard Maritime Domain Awareness for the 2020 National Academy of Sciences Report, said on Sept. 19.
Pribyl was testifying before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation.
He said the 2020 report, called “Leveraging Unmanned Systems for Coast Guard Missions,” argued the Coast Guard should issue a high-level strategy, designate a senior champion, rise up a program office, expand and normalize experimentation and get a fix on funding needs (Defense Each day, Nov. 12, 2020).
Pribyl’s written testimony said the Coast Guard has only fully addressed the primary of the five recommendations.
The report advisable the Commandant of the Coast Guard issue a high level unmanned systems (UxS) technique to “articulate a compelling rationale for UxSs, set forth agency-critical goals that these systems should further, and description the Coast Guard’s approach for achieving them,” Pribyl said.
In March, the service finally promulgated an Unmanned Systems Strategic Plan, “which appears to have addressed this advice,” Pribyl said.
In contrast, the opposite 4 pieces have had mixed results.
The committee advisable the Commandant designate a single top Coast Guard official to advocate for and advance its UxS strategy to raised discover, promote, coordinate and facilitate changes to further unmanned strategic goals and objectives.
Pribyl said while the service has not designated an official to those ends, it appointed Capt. Thom Remmers as Unmanned Systems Lead.
He said this “must be viewed as a positive step that meets the intent of this advice,” together with the promulgation of the March unmanned systems plan by Vice Adm. Peter Gautier, Deputy Commandant for Operations.
The committee advisable a dedicated program office working with a high-level UxS advocate could help lead and coordinate using unmanned systems across Coast Guard forces in addition to leverage relevant capabilities outside the service.
“The committee advised that an early initiative of this system office must be to develop a “roadmap” that translates the high-level UxS strategic goals and objectives into an actionable plan to perform them, which should specify tasks needing priority attention, time frames for completion, and performance metrics and milestones,” Pribyl said.
Nevertheless, the service has not established this program office. As an alternative, it has developed a multi-program office autonomous policy committee, often known as AutoPoCo, that meets periodically to debate issues and attempts to supply a unified view.
Pribyl said that committee’s utility is restricted since it “just isn’t an avenue to which the general public has direct access, and thus industrial entities are still expected to approach a mess of offices to grasp the parameters of lawful operations, starting from Sector, District, and Headquarters offices.”
The report also advisable the Coast Guard expand and normalize systematic operations-related experimentation with low-cost UxS. Pribyl said the committee decided that encouraging UxS experimentation “is not going to only help to discover useful uses, but in addition nurture a technology-curious and -proficient workforce across the ranks.”
He noted the Coast Guard seems to have taken some steps on this direction because it participates in Navy experimentation with unmanned surface vessels (USVs) like on the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (RIMPAC).
He noted the service has used Saildrone USVs in support of research and development, nevertheless it is unclear if the vessels are required to comply with the international regulations for stopping collisions at sea (COLREGS).
“That is a vital distinction…because the COLREGS apply to all vessels, and thus are critical to the Coast Guard as each a user and regulator of unmanned vessels.”
The U.S. 4th Fleet has began using Saildrone Voyager Unmanned Surface Vessels in its long-term operations testing within the Caribbean Sea region to assist improve maritime domain awareness (Defense Each day, Sept. 15).
Last yr, the Navy’s fifth Fleet announced it launched an Aerovel Flexrotor small vertical take-off and landing unmanned aerial system (UAS) from the Coast Guard cutter USCGC (WPC-1145) within the the primary such launch of a UAV from a Coast Guard cutter via Task Force 59 (Defense Each day, Dec. 15, 2022).
Task Force 59 is that fleet’s unit that’s conducting experiments with unmanned systems within the region, which spurred Navy leadership to expand similar efforts to the 4th Fleet.
The ultimate committee advice was that the service should develop a “detailed assessment of investment needs” to ultimately expand unmanned system research and development, concepts of operations and integration. This might help support sustained funding with a commitment to repeatedly increasing funding over the long run, Pribyl said.
“While the committee was not in a position to estimate and advise on how much additional funding could be required for these investments, it advisable the event of an in depth assessment of investment needs,” he said in his written testimony.
Through the hearing, Pryble said the Coast Guard could get essentially the most immediate value out of unmanned systems through the use of them for search and rescue and pollution response missions.
He argued that the report found a fundamental issue for the Coast Guard gaining industrial access to platforms was the acquisition process.
“That it wasn’t moving quickly enough, that they didn’t have the mechanisms in place to avail themselves of that technology. And, in the US, most of this technology is being developed on the industrial side. So, we had made some recommendations related to that.”