Navy Requests Information for Unmanned Maritime Autonomy Architecture

By RICHARD R BURGESS, Senior Editor

WASHINGTON — The Navy has issued a Request for Information (RFI) from industry concerning unmanned autonomous maritime systems standardization to lead to more commonality in systems architecture.

The RFI, released on Feb. 15 by the Program Executive Office-Unmanned Maritime Systems and Small Combatants, is for Unmanned Maritime Autonomy Architecture (UMAA) for operation of unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) and unmanned surface vehicles (USVs).

“The intent of UMAA is to provide overarching standards that various UUVs and USVs can be built to in order to avoid creating multiple conflicting systems in the future,” an official said.

The RFI, posted on the FedBizOps website, invites government organizations and industry “to participate in the development of the Unmanned Maritime Autonomy Architecture (UMAA). The UMAA is being established to enable autonomy commonality and reduce acquisition costs across both surface and undersea unmanned vehicles.”

The RFI said that in 2018 “the Unmanned Maritime Program Office (PMS 406) chartered a cross-organizational team to develop the Unmanned Maritime Autonomy Architecture with the goal of standardizing autonomy interfaces across its growing portfolio of unmanned vehicles. Earlier this year, the team published the UMAA Architecture Design Description providing the initial framework for both service and interface definition. Additional design guidance will be provided through a series of Interface Control Documents (ICDs) in the areas below.

• Situational Awareness,

• Sensor and Effector Management,

• Processing Management,

• Communications Management,

• Vehicle Maneuver Management,

• Vehicle Engineering Management,

• Vehicle Computing Management,

• Support Operations”

An initial industry day will be held on March 4.