Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) Division Newport’s Argus Expeditionary Maritime Defense System team recently partnered with the U.S. Coast Guard Research and Development Center to evaluate capabilities that could aid the Coast Guard’s detection efforts, particularly with counter-unmanned undersea vehicle missions.
As part of its comprehensive efforts to provide maritime security and protect critical infrastructure, the Coast Guard is looking for solutions that would enable detection of unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) in near-shore environments. A limited user evaluation of the Argus system was held April 25 to May 4 on Naval Station Newport’s Pier 2.
The proliferation of unmanned systems poses a threat to littoral areas and requires quick, effective and flexible defense systems. To provide a viable solution to this challenge, Argus employs commercial off-the-shelf active sonars to detect, track, classify, deter and defeat undersea targets and combines it with radar and forward-looking infrared cameras to track surface and airborne targets — all in an expeditionary system.
Argus is composed of field-tested components (sensors, effectors, etc.) that can be tailored to fit specific missions. Its government-developed and owned Crossfire command and control software integrates sensor data into one common operating picture, providing multi-domain situational awareness and critical input to the deter/defeat technologies.
Division Newport’s Ranges, Engineering and Analysis Department, is home to the Argus team of engineers, scientists and researchers who specialize in detection, identification and interdiction of divers, swimmers and UUVs in port and harbor environments.
Also participating in the event were fleet operators from Unmanned Undersea Vehicle Squadron One (UUVRON-1) who operated IVER-3 UUVs as the “threat” to be detected and mitigated. Staff from the Coast Guard Research and Development Center and USCG Maritime Safety and Security Team (MSST) Cape Cod — one of the anti-terrorism teams of the Coast Guard — were on hand to evaluate the system, assess interoperability with their response assets and tactics, and generate feedback on Argus deployment and operation from a Coast Guard perspective. After integration and training with their teams and response boats, the Coast Guard was able to rapidly react to information provided by Argus and perform multiple response maneuvers against the IVERs.
The combined team was able to execute a complete user evaluation, from deployment planning to threat mitigation, within a short time period. Overall, the Argus team achieved their goal of providing the Coast Guard with the decision support information they needed to manage threats.
Christian Schumacher, chief development officer for NUWC Headquarters and former Argus technical program manager, worked with the Coast Guard team to set up a collaborative event throughout COVID-19 restrictions.
“Initially we were planning to work with the Coast Guard at Fleet Forces Command Solid Curtain 2021 and when that fell through due to COVID, we were able to take advantage of the limited user evaluation opportunity to get them to use our system, learn it, and see how it might meet some of their requirements,” Schumacher said. “We knew there’d be some synergy there, we saw the potential so it was great to see the teams and the system working so well together.”
For the evaluation, Argus pushed its data to a new mesh network radio system for real-time tasking. The Coast Guard RDC and MSST team went from never using the system to learning it and using it successfully in a matter of days.
Jon Larcom, who recently took over as Argus technical program manager, had previously supported the team on expeditionary testing.
“We had a big lift on this one — lots of new people, new leadership, and new pieces of equipment,” Larcom said. “The team came together under pressure and in tough weather conditions….
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