TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Ground/Sea Vehicles

ACQUISITION PROGRAM: Littoral Combat Ship Unmanned Surface Vehicles

The technology within this topic is restricted under the International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), which controls the export and import of defense-related material and services. Offerors must disclose any proposed use of foreign nationals, their country of origin, and what tasks each would accomplish in the statement of work in accordance with section 3.5.b.(7) of the solicitation.

OBJECTIVE: Reliable at sea fueling of Unmanned Surface Vehicles with minimal risk to personnel, environment, and fuel integrity.

DESCRIPTION: The Navy�s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) is the centerpiece for using unmanned vehicles (UVs) for conducting mine warfare (MIW), anti-submarine warfare (ASW), and surface warfare (SUW). Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) will be a common component to the packages being developed to carry out these warfare missions. Weight is a critical variable in design trade-offs involving both the LCS and the mission packages, and fuel is a significant factor in weight considerations. To maximize the weight allocated on USVs to sensors, communication equipment, and other such components, USVs will be launched with less than their fuel capacity on board. This topic solicits technology for fueling USVs along side the mother platform. The topic provides three challenges ranging from one to three in terms of priority. 1. One-time only fully fueling a USV newly launched over the side of an LCS with no possibility for refueling. 2. The first challenge plus refueling the USV from the LCS. 3. The second challenge plus refueling the USV from platforms other than the LCS. A proposed approach which offers a superior solution to the first challenge would be ranked higher than a proposed solution that offers a satisfactory solution to two or three challenges. The proposed solution should be suitable to both of the two LCS designs and to the planned USV designs and their variants.

Proposed solutions should incorporate the entire system and process, including mother ship equipment, USV equipment, control algorithms, and. emergency disengagement. USV fuel tanks can be assumed to be half-full at initial launch. Both diesel and JP-5 fuels will be used by USVs. The proposed solution must not include temporary manning of the USV. It must not add significantly to the weight of the LCS or USV. (Note: references to mission package and LCS payload weights found in various documents typically, but not always, include fuel.) The solution must provide a reliable connection and fuel transfer in at least Sea State 3 with a goal of Sea State 4. Large ship alongside refueling typically occurs between 12 and 16 knots. The proposed technique must prevent fuel spillage at any point during the operation. It must prevent fuel contamination in the expected dirty, high-water conditions. It must accommodate the configurations of mission systems on board a USV.

There are three key parts of this topic to be addresses. The first is a light weight fuel handling system for LCS. This must be compact and light weight in order to minimize the changes to the ship. This may include composite materials and other means to provide significant weight reduction to current fuel handling systems in the references. The second areas in the USV control algorithms needed safely maneuver the USV in proximity to the ship in sea state 3 or less in order to safely fuel the USV. This also includes and approach/station keeping algorithms and the monitoring and control functions aboard the LCS. The third main component is safety. The system should be designed with fail-safe mechanisms to prevent fuel spillage, contamination of the fuel, and ignition of the fuel. This proposal should address the above three topic focus areas.

PHASE I: Develop a conceptual design of the USV at sea fueling system. The design should include a tradeoff study for both the mother ship and USV equipment. Interface control documentation should be created for the design. High risks components of the proposed solution should be identified and small lab demonstrations proposed of how those high risks would be reduced.

PHASE II: Development of a prototype system that could be integrated onto a USV in Phase III upon successful testing. Testing of the prototype could be on a platform of opportunity, which may include a RHIB boat and commercial ship.

PHASE III: Integration and test of the system on a USV aboard a ship of opportunity, which may be LCS Seafighter or a mock-up on a commercial ship.

PRIVATE SECTOR COMMERCIAL POTENTIAL.DUAL-USE APPLICATIONS: This technology would be applicable to any application involving USVs and requiring high tempo operations or other operations where launch and recovery for fueling is not desirable. Examples would include oil and gas exploration, search and rescue missions, commercial salvage, harbor and coastal surveillance for homeland defense especially in high alert conditions.

REFERENCES: 1. Littoral Combat Ship. http://peoships.crane.navy.mil/lcs/

2. Underway replenishment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underway_replenishment

3. Underway replenishment (UNREP). http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/unrep.htm

4. T-AOT 168 Sealift Pacific. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/ship/taot-168.htm

5. Beeson, Bradley and Christopher Hillenbrand. Development of the Anti-Submarine Warfare Unmanned Surface Vehicle (ASW USV) Engineering Developmental Model to Meet US Navy Needs. Paper available from General Dynamics Robotic Systems at: http://www.gdrs.com/about/profile/pdfs/UDTPacific2006_4A3_.pdf

6. Brizzolara, Robert. Unmanned Sea Surface Vehicle. December, 2004. http://www.dodsbir.net/sitis
/view_pdf.asp?id=N051-055.pdf

7. In-air re-fueling, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_refueling

8. An example of a commercial software planning tool to show the steps that are involved in the current air refueling systems http://www.air-refueling.com/

KEYWORDS: Unmanned Surface Vehicle; USV; Littoral Combat Ship; LCS; fueling; replenishment

TPOC: Daniel Deitz
Phone: (202)781-2670
Fax:
Email: [email protected]
2nd TPOC: Cecil Whitfield
Phone: (202)781-4454
Fax: (202)781-4695
Email: [email protected]

** TOPIC AUTHOR (TPOC) **

DoD Notice:   Between July 19 and August 19, 2007, 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 August 20, 2007, when DoD begins accepting proposals for this solicitation.

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