Supercharging Contingency Response / Ace Missions: Mission Planning & Operations for Autonomous Platforms with Tactical Sensors

Autonomous systems are redefining the character of war. The Russian war with Ukraine proves this in real-time. Loitering sUAS are wreaking havoc, pinning both sides into entrenched positions to avoid exposure to intelligent sensors and targeted munitions. Newsreels of the Shahed-123, the Bayraktar, the Switchblade, and the undersea drone used to strike the Russian Black Sea Fleet are high-profile examples of the changing face of military operations. Autonomous intelligent systems - drones, ground robots, weaponized platforms, and surface/undersea vehicles - are being fielded in combat and military support applications. To keep pace with the changing face of warfare, the DoD must embrace autonomous system technology efficiently, smartly, and cost-effectively. This has already begun in the USAF. Through Agile Combat Employment (ACE) doctrine, the USAF is seeking ways to deploy leaner, faster, and cost-effectively to austere and often contested environments. The USAF sees intelligent autonomous platforms, namely small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) and quadrupedal unmanned ground vehicles (Q-UGV), as a new capability to automate airfield security, conduct forward reconnaissance, and execute various missions in deployed forward operating environments.  The 435 Security Forces Squadron (SFS) supports on-demand deployments to expeditionary airfields in response to humanitarian and contingency operations and provides multi-theater operational support, training, and partnership building. In keeping with ACE doctrine, the 435 SFS sees an opportunity to employ autonomous systems in the air and on the ground for site security in vastly different and evolving expeditionary environments. These autonomous platforms introduce critical force multipliers that enable the Air Ground Operations Wing to do more with less in the field and reduce dangers to Airmen. Specifically, the 435 SFS seeks to employ sensors on sUAS platforms for aerial information gathering and forward reconnaissance, and ground-based Q-UGVs to secure expeditionary air base perimeters and reduce Airmen exposure to enemy fire and other hazards. Because autonomous systems are relatively new to USAF missions, attention has yet to be focused on knowing which autonomous platforms / sensors are ideal for different missions / expeditionary site conditions. Likewise, little work has been done to know how to prepare missions for autonomous systems in ways that can be quantitatively verified to increase the security effectiveness of the mission. 435 SFS plans to partner with ARES Security to pilot the technology that can be used to transform how airmen prepare for and conduct expeditionary missions leveraging autonomous systems. ARES technology will be used in the mission planning and operational phases of expeditionary missions. ARES Security introduces these capabilities through their AVERT suite of software that can be prototyped to meet contingency response and ACE mission needs in the proposed SBIR.