Semi-autonomous Capabilities for the Operation of Uncrewed Teams (SCOUT)

Natural disasters and other severe weather events have the potential to create loss of life and damage property on large scales. Preparing for and responding to these incidents is a complex, multi-phase process. NOAA’s 2019-2022 Strategic Plan to achieve the vision of a Weather Ready Nation will reduce the impacts of weather, water, and climate events, and harness cutting-edge science, technology, and engineering to provide the best observations, forecasts, and warnings possible. Uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) provide new sensing capabilities, keep humans out of harm’s way, and collect precise and actionable data when effectively supported by autonomy. We propose to implement and demonstrate Semi-autonomous Capabilities for the Operation of Uncrewed Teams (SCOUT), beginning by analyzing requirements and developing scenarios, integrating with existing commercial UAS and their ground control stations, and adding user interfaces to plan, monitor, and analyze survey missions. We will then fully implement and validate the dynamic routing and scene characterization algorithms prototyped during Phase I. Finally, we will validate airframe effectiveness and overall system concept viability to enable disaster management teams to leverage small, semi-autonomous UAS to execute rapid site survey missions to mitigate severe weather effects and vertically profile critical meteorological data for localized weather forecasting.