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

Natural disasters and other severe weather events have the potential to create loss of life and damage property on a large scale. Preparing for and responding to these incidents is a complex, multi-phase process. NOAA’s 2019-2022 Strategic Plan is to achieve the vision of a Weather Ready Nation to 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. UAS provide new sensing capabilities, keep humans out of harm’s way, and can collect precise and actionable data when effectively supported by autonomy. We propose to design and demonstrate the feasibility of Semi-autonomous Capabilities for the Operation of Unmanned Teams (SCOUT). Our approach begins with requirements analysis and scenario development, includes hardware and software component design, and then focuses on prototyping UAS routing and object detection algorithms to demonstrate concept feasibility. SCOUT will allow Decision-Support Services (DSS) teams within regional Weather Forecast Offices (WFOs) to employ cost-feasible, small, semi-autonomous UAS to accomplish critical lifesaving operations, such as vertical profiling of critical meteorological data for localized forecasting, survey missions to mitigate severe weather effects, and proactive alerting of people of danger from imminent weather conditions.