GTRI to develop test program for US unmanned systems

-- Test & Measurement World, 8/12/2008 8:04:00 AM

The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) has won a contract to support the development of a roadmap designed to improve the testing and evaluation of unmanned and autonomous systems for the US Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). The effort will address all five major unmanned and autonomous system domains, including systems that operate in the air, on the ground, underwater, on the sea surface, and in space. It will also encompass both vehicles and the socio-technical environments in which they operate.

"The field of unmanned and autonomous systems is evolving rapidly, and new techniques are needed to effectively test and evaluate the capabilities that are being inserted into these systems. This is especially challenging for systems that are increasing in levels of autonomy," said Lora Weiss, a GTRI principal research engineer. "Our task is to develop a roadmap that identifies new approaches to testing autonomous systems and details what needs to be tested, how the autonomous technologies can be tested, and when the testing needs to occur."

Known as the Roadmap Development and Technology Insertion Plan (RD-TIP), the one-year $430,000 award is funded through the US Army at White Sands Missile Range. The initiative is headed by Derrick Hinton, T&E/S&T program manager with the Test Resources Management Center (TRMC) in the US Department of Defense.

"Test and evaluation have traditionally been a focus area for GTRI," noted Rusty Roberts, a principal research engineer who oversees all of GTRI's test and evaluation programs. "The current roadmap award builds on GTRI's long-term experience with test and evaluation for government customers and couples it with GTRI's strong knowledge of unmanned systems," he said.

The unmanned systems test and evaluation project is a new area within GTRI's Test and Evaluation Science and Technology Program, which is sponsored by the TRMC. Unmanned and autonomous systems are recognized as critical components to all aspects of modern warfare across the joint forces, and they are growing in mission effectiveness.

"They are being chosen over manned systems when the situation involves the dull (long mission times), the dirty (sampling for hazardous materials), and the dangerous (lethal exposure to hostile action)—and when the unmanned systems can provide capabilities that are not achievable by manned systems," Weiss noted.