More than 20 AE students spent their spring breaks undergoing a mid-term check – in Panama City.

The trip – and the check-up – are both part of a year-long collaboration between AE’s Aerospace Systems Design Lab (ASDL) and the Naval Engineering Education Center (NEEC) that is exploring the utility of using various unmanned surface vehicles (USV) and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) to detect mines.

The ASDL sent three teams of researchers to the March 21-22 Panama City review, each with a slightly different focus. All of them came back with positive feedback and plenty of work. The year-long project doesn't wrap up until September.

“The mid-term check is all about getting technical feedback from subject experts,” said J. Charles Domercant, an ASDL research engineer who is working with graduate students on the Mine Countermeasures Grand Challenge project.

“The experts from NAVSEA [Naval Services Warfare Center – Panama City Division] gave us some great insight. We’ll be building based on what they gave us.”

Funded by the Office of Naval Research, the Mine Countermeasures Grand Challenge is seeking to design an optimal combination of USV/UUV equipment for the Navy’s littoral combat ships (LCS). Student researchers in this team will help define what combinations of vehicles, weapons, and sensors should be used to create a mine countermeasures module for the LCS.

A second team, composed mainly of undergraduate researchers, is looking at the unique maritime communication issues raised by the use of UUVs and USVs for mine detection. A third team is looking to enhance the performance of unmanned systems used in mine countermeasures by developing automated target recognition and decision-making algorithms and methods.

The Panama City Spring Break Crew from ASDL (left to right) Tyler Durkota, Charles Domercant, Scott Ashcraft, Pierre Valdez, Kelly Griendling, Kristen Nosbisch, Nick Molino, Michael Bozeman, Max Van Benthem of NSWC PCD, Mat Bays, and ENSIGN, USN, a graudate student.