ARLINGTON, Va.—A U.S. Marine and Coast Guardsman each recently received a Chief of Naval Research (CNR) Award for Excellence in Intelligent Autonomous Systems from the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS).
“The Office of Naval Research [ONR] and NPS have a long-standing partnership spanning graduate and advanced education as well as basic and applied research,” said CNR Rear Adm. Kurt Rothenhaus. “These students are doing the on-target research needed to maintain the technical edge of our future force — well done!”
The CNR Award winners were:
— Marine Corps Capt. Joseph J. Kelly Jr. for his thesis entitled “Space Maneuver and State Information Update Frequency”
— Coast Guard Lt. Justin P. Goff for his thesis entitled “Assessment of Nighttime Airborne Visual ASW Capability”
Located in Monterey, California, NPS is an in-house, Department of the Navy-owned and -operated naval command with a graduate university mission. It offers master's and doctoral degrees in more than 70 fields of defense-focused study to the U.S. armed forces, Department of Defense civilians and international partners.
ONR partners with NPS on a variety of academic efforts, including the Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education and Research (CRUSER). This initiative involves ONR, the Department of Defense, Department of the Navy, industry and academia in advancing unmanned systems education and research — in order to shape future generations of naval officers through concept generation and experimentation in maritime application of robotics, automation and unmanned technology
“CRUSER truly is an interdisciplinary program,” said Dr. Mara Orescanin, who is CRUSER’s director and an NPS oceanography professor. “It touches on all academic departments — including engineering, information science, operations, business — and deals with all aspects of autonomous systems, from the technical to the ethical.”
The CNR Award for Excellence in Intelligent Autonomous Systems is a major tool in CRUSER’s recruitment and recognition of NPS students performing outstanding academic work. Given twice a year, every six months, each iteration of the award honors two students. One award focuses on engineering and science research, and the other focuses on operational research.
“The former deals with the technical side, such as someone working on actual robotics,” said Orescanin. “The latter involves someone using autonomous systems in their research or analyzing the implications of using autonomous systems, for example, human-machine teaming.”
Recommendations for CNR Award winners come from NPS thesis advisors, program officers (active-duty military in charge of students in certain programs) and fellow students.
Kelly’s winning thesis deals with outer space, which is an increasingly important economic and strategic domain for the United States. To operate effectively, spacecraft must be able to avoid both maneuvering and non-maneuvering objects, a problem compounded by the growing number of objects in space, including satellites. In his thesis, Kelly posits using trajectory-optimization tools to enable a spacecraft with only intermittent domain awareness to avoid intercept by another craft.
“I’m honored to receive the CNR Award, especially given the impressive work that my fellow NPS warrior-scholars are conducting,” said Kelly. “I thank the chief of naval research and the Office of Naval Research for this recognition. I’m glad to be able to contribute even a small part to the great strides currently being made in the U.S. space sector.”
Orescanin said, “This award builds on the mission of CRUSER to bring various research communities and disciplines together. Perspectives could include engineering, battlespace environment, law and policy, among others. The beauty of such interdisciplinary science is that it really brings together different ways of thinking about problems, in order to find truly innovative solutions.”
Warren Duffie Jr. is a contractor for ONR Corporate Strategic Communications.