Increasing situational awareness through the use of uxv teams while reducing operator workload

Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Laboratories, in conjunction with Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems and Sensors and Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Advanced Development Programs, performed a set of experiments in cooperation with the U.S. Navy involving collaborative, unmanned surface and air vehicle mission execution. Our multi-domain, collaborative research focused on increasing the ability of unmanned vehicles to be contributing team members in maritime and port security. The unmanned vehicles use intelligent autonomous behaviors, collaborative mission task-based command and control, and human-system interfacing in environments that support limited communications. High-level autonomous algorithms and behaviors remove the need for operators to focus attention on tasking the UxV team. The operators can work from a remote command center as well as in the field using hand-held devices and workstations in a mobile command and control vehicle while performing other tasks. The primary objective is to effectively use unmanned systems to increase overall situational awareness and reliability while significantly reducing human operator workload.