Interoperability Among Unmanned Maritime Vehicles: Review and First In-field Experimentation

Area of Science:

• Maritime Robotics and Autonomous Systems
• Naval Technology and Interoperability
• Underwater Communications and Networking

Background:

• Traditional maritime missions rely on manned vessels, which are costly and pose risks to personnel.
• Unmanned Maritime Vehicles (UMVs) present a solution for enhanced naval capabilities, offering rapid deployment, scalability, and cost reduction.
• Current multi-vendor, multi-protocol UMV systems lack standardized interfaces, hindering interoperability, especially in the challenging underwater domain.

Purpose of the Study:

• To discuss the critical aspect of interoperability among Unmanned Maritime Vehicles (UMVs) in maritime operations.
• To review technological advancements in UMV interoperability from 2000 onwards, incorporating practical field experience.
• To identify future research directions for achieving robust interoperability in marine robotics.

Main Methods:

• A comprehensive literature review of UMV interoperability technologies and trends since 2000.
• Analysis of practical in-field experience and a sea trial demonstrating UMV integration.
• Focus on interoperability among heterogeneous autonomous UMVs, including the role of human operators.

Main Results:

• Interoperability in UMV operations is a significant area of research with diverse ongoing efforts.
• A sea trial successfully integrated heterogeneous autonomous UMVs into a network using different middlewares and acoustic modems for a multistatic active sonar system.
• Demonstrated the potential for integrating UMVs into existing naval networks, highlighting the need for common control interfaces and protocols.

Conclusions:

• Achieving seamless interoperability is crucial for the widespread adoption and effectiveness of UMVs in complex maritime missions.
• Human confidence in UMVs is a limiting factor, necessitating a gradual shift towards supervisory roles for operators as interoperability matures.
• Future advancements should focus on creating a truly interoperable system-of-systems, enabling fully autonomous UMV operations with diminished human monitoring.