Multi-Disciplinary Basic Research in the Science of Autonomy with Naval Relevance

The summary for the Multi-Disciplinary Basic Research in the Science of Autonomy with Naval Relevance grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the Office of Naval Research, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

Multi-Disciplinary Basic Research in the Science of Autonomy with Naval Relevance: The ONR is seeking proposals that address basic science and engineering research in thescience of autonomy at U.S. institutions of higher learning (hereafter referred to as"universities). The focus is on problems of critical interest to the Navy and MarineCorps. The research topics of interest are: (1) Human Collaboration and Interactionwith Unmanned Systems, (2) Autonomous perception and intelligent decision making,(3) Scalable and robust distributed collaboration, and (4) Intelligent ArchitectureEnablers. Detailed descriptions of the research topics can be found below. The detaileddescriptions are intended to provide the proposer a frame of reference and are not meantto be restrictive to the possible approaches to achieving the goals of the topic and theprogram. Innovative ideas addressing these research topics are highly encouraged.This BAA is focused on multi-disciplinary research efforts that intersect more than onetraditional science and engineering discipline to address issues of critical interest to navalforces. Proposals from a team of university researchers may be warranted because thenecessary expertise in addressing the multiple facets of the topics may reside in multipleuniversities. Proposals from a single university or a small team of researchers are withinthe scope of this BAA. One institution shall be the primary awardee for purposes ofaward execution.Autonomous behavior and the systems that incorporate it will be seen in many futurenaval operating domains, used for many missions, and on multiple platforms. In theONR BAA 09-008 3future this may lead to a distributed system of heterogeneous unmanned systems relyingon network-centric, decentralized control that is flexible in its level of autonomy, with theability to get the right level of information to the right user at the right time. Features ofsuch a system may include: (1) Operations as part of a hybrid force with mannedsystems and platforms, (2) Automated image/scene understanding, data gathering,purposeful sensing/seeking, information analysis and distributed informationmanagement, (3) Autonomous cooperation among a group of systems to perform amission or task including automated distribution of tasks to elements within theautomated system based on high-level plans, goals, and the commanders intent, and (4)Autonomy to determine the best way to accomplish each task, with appropriate humanguidance to shape and direct its performance.Achieving such capabilities will require overcoming challenges of the operationalenvironment of the Navy and Marine Corps including: (1) Operations in spatially andtemporally variable and uncertain environments with limiting manning, communications,and other resources; (2) Users with a wide range of skills and experience includinggetting unmanned system services to support small tactical units; (3) Diverseenvironments encompassing air, sea surface, undersea and ground systems and hybridconcepts in between; (4) Platforms with highly limited and intermittent communicationssuch as undersea vehicles including substantial latency in sharing data on theenvironment, targets of interest, and system state; (5) Complex missions withheterogeneous platforms and sensors including significant differences in physical andsensing capabilities (e.g., the shorter ranges of many sensors in the underseaenvironment); (6) Rapid and dynamic responses to user needs and changes in theoperating space; and (7) The need for automation to explain its capabilities to the userand reliably execute the required tasks in the required time, which is particularlyimportant for systems with limited communications bandwidth.Offerors should note that the development of advanced sensors, communicationshardware or hardware of any type is outside the scope of this effort with the exception ofa limited amount of effort that may be used to design hardware needed as part ofexperiments. Also, specifically excluded is the development of new platforms, such asairframes, ground, or sea vehicles. In addition, the focus of this effort will not be on thedevelopment of general communications algorithms such as data compression algorithms.Proposed technologies should be applicable to multiple types of naval platforms.Technologies that are specific to only a single type of platform are outside the scope ofthis BAA. Finally, research in the science of autonomy shall emphasize principledapproaches and/or mathematical rigor to the greatest extent possible and minimize the useof heuristics. Although, it is recognized that heuristics may sometimes be necessary insolutions to very complex problems.The ONR is interested in receiving proposals for efforts that address the following focusareas. Proposals may address single or multiple focus areas. However, there are strongconnections between the focus areas and proposals that address multi-disciplinaryresearch topics, in general, are of most interest. This includes disciplines as diverse asartificial intelligence, control theory, mathematics, human factors, cognitive science,ONR BAA 09-008 4biology, and the social sciences. In each case, the design of appropriate experiments tovalidate theoretical developments will be important. The ONR has funded related scienceand technology development under numerous programs. Proposals that build on currentor previous Department of Defense (DoD) work are encouraged but not required. Ifofferors are enhancing work performed under other ONR or DoD projects, they mustclearly identify the point of departure and what existing work will be brought forwardand what new work will be performed under this BAA. Please see the full announcement.