TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Ground/Sea Vehicles, Materials/Processes

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: PMS 501, Littoral Combat Ship Program, ACAT 1

OBJECTIVE: To develop a shipboard capability for autonomous hull inspection both above and below the waterline while in port or at sea.

DESCRIPTION: Currently, underwater hull inspections are performed manually by divers in the water or through the use of a submersible remote operating vehicle. Above the waterline inspections are performed manually by ship’s personnel. These inspection evolutions are generally performed in port or at applicable support facilities which requires advanced planning and the use of highly skilled and trained personnel.

This topic seeks innovate approaches toward developing an autonomous system that will provide the capability of inspecting the entire hull of a ship while in port or at sea. The system shall provide for classes of inspection criteria to include, but not be limited to, marine sea life, hull geometry, hull physical characteristics (e.g., smoothness, penetrations, and thickness) together with operator defined thresholds for determining a difference from a prior inspection. The system shall retain prior inspection results and determine any changes from the prior inspections to include, but not be limited to, build-up of sea life (e.g., barnacles), mine or mine-like objects, hull penetrations, discontinuities in the hull (e.g., crack formation or internal corrosion), and physical differences from previous inspections. The system shall also determine and retain areas of interest based on the differences found by analysis of the inspection data. The system will alert an operator of any differences found and will retain the difference information for future inspections. The system shall allow an operator to classify the differences into classes of severity for future inspections and analysis including the setting of thresholds for defining a new difference. The system shall be capable of functioning in a manual mode and should be developed in such a way as to minimize ship impact (e.g., size, weight, power, stowage, etc.) as well as the operational and personnel efforts to initiate, execute, and terminate the inspection process.

PHASE I: Develop and demonstrate the feasibility of an autonomous hull inspection system that will provide the above capabilities. Approaches should address the concept of operations and projected capabilities, system descriptions, concept drawings, and applicable interface requirements.

PHASE II: Finalize the design, fabricate and demonstrate a prototype of the system developed in Phase I. Through land-based testing, demonstrate the functionality of the prototype. Develop detailed concept of operation and projected capabilities, prototype descriptions, production drawings, interface specifications, operating sequences, emergency procedures, logistics support plan, weight breakdown, system cost estimates (both acquisition and lifecycle), and manning/Human Systems Interface (H.S.I.) requirements.

PHASE III: In Phase III, it is expected that the small business will work with government and or commercial industry to finalize the prototype for use on Naval or commercial platforms.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL/DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: The Hull Inspection System would be applicable to many fields. Its applications could include inspections of pilings/seawalls, hull inspections on commercial ships, surveillance and reconnaissance, or other underwater inspection activities.

REFERENCES:

1. NAVSEA T9074-AS-GIB-010/271- Requirements for Non-destructive testing Methods.

2. US Navy Diving Manual Volume 1.

3. The Underwater Work techniques Manual Volume 2.

4. NAVSHIPS Technical Manual, Waterborne Underwater Hull Cleaning of Surface Ships Chapter 081.

5. http://www.navysbir.com/ via the SBIR/STTR Interactive Topic Information System (SITIS) web link or on the World Wide Web.

KEYWORDS: Hull; Inspection; Underwater; Unmanned; Autonomous; UV.

** TOPIC AUTHOR (TPOC) **

DoD Notice:   Between April 21 and May 18, 2008, you may talk directly with the Topic Author(s) to ask technical questions about the topics. Their contact information is listed above. For reasons of competitive fairness, direct communication between proposers and topic authors is not allowed starting May 19, 2008, when DoD begins accepting proposals for this solicitation.

However, proposers may still submit written questions about solicitation topics through the DoD's SBIR/STTR Interactive Topic Information System (SITIS), in which the questioner and respondent remain anonymous and all questions and answers are posted electronically for general viewing until the solicitation closes. All proposers are advised to monitor SITIS (08.2 Q&A) during the solicitation period for questions and answers, and other significant information, relevant to the SBIR 08.1 topic under which they are proposing.

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