CRUSER FY19 Call for Proposals

Due Date: 17 Aug 2018

Submission Procedures: See details below

On-Line submission ONLY: https://survey.nps.edu/818149/lang-en

Selection Date:  21 Sep 2018

Funding Start Date: 1 Dec 2018 

Funding Expiration Date: 31 Dec 2019

Funding Levels: up to  $150,000

Proposal Type: Single-Year Proposals

 

Research Goal: The Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education and Research (CRUSER) at the Naval Postgraduate School provides a collaborative environment for the advancement of educational and research endeavors involving robotics and unmanned systems across the Navy and Marine Corps. CRUSER seeks to align efforts, both internal and external to NPS, by facilitating active means of collaboration, providing a portal for information exchange among researchers and educators with collaborative interests, and supporting innovation with operationally relevant research and experimentation.

Anticipated Funding Amount:  Funding has not yet been received for FY19; however the purpose of this call for proposals is to prepare researchers on campus to begin work as soon as possible in the new fiscal year.  We anticipate being able to fund ~20 projects averaging ~$100k -$150k each.

1. CRUSER funding, outside of the individual proposal, is available for INCONUS travel support for full-time enrolled MS & PhD students only.  Travel for Professors and Faculty Associate – Researchers will only be supported by the funded project.   Students requiring travel funds will follow the standard CRUSER Student Travel request procedure to be approved for this travel support.  Students who do not have prior approval to travel on CRUSER funding will be charged to the project. 

Research Focus Areas:  “Distributed Maritime Operations: Combined, Joint, and Coalition Warfare at Sea" originated from the Warfare Innovation Continuum Workshop (WICW) held in Sep 2017. CRUSER encourages proposals in all areas of research that involve unmanned systems, but is particularly interested in research related to the following topic areas:

1. Autonomy in Support of Operations & Logistics: this topic area includes autonomy concepts that provide direct operational & logistical support to warfighters in a battlespace. 
2. Man-Machine Teaming: this topic area includes robotics and autonomy concepts to support warfighters throughout their careers.
3. Organizational Change & Adoption: rather than purely autonomy related concepts, this topic area includes recommendations for change at the organizational level to better leverage the capabilities that autonomy may offer in the future
4. Other robotics and unmanned systems concepts. 

Classification Level: 

1. Unclassified (Preferred) but Classified work will be considered.

Required Documents:  

1. 5-7 page proposal in MS Word (.docx)  (Use CRUSER template & submit on-line.  Do not submit via the Research Office).
2. Current Year Research Office Budget form.  {List CRUSER as the Sponsor.  If selected, the CRUSER director will sign and route via RSPO.  No sub-JONs will be created}.
3. Quad Chart  (use the CRUSER provided template) and submit as a .pptx file.

Submission Procedures:

1. All FY19 proposal packages will be submitted online at: https://survey.nps.edu/818149/lang-en

Review and Selection Board: 

1. Proposals will be evaluated by a panel of reviewers co-chaired by the Dean of Research and the CRUSER Director. 

Proposal Evaluation Criteria:

1. Student involvement
2. Interdisciplinary, interagency, and partnerships with other Naval labs
3. Partnerships with other sponsors’ funding
4. Research related to various unmanned systems’ categories:
   1. Technical
   2. Organization and Employment
   3. Social, Cultural, Political, Ethical and Legal
   4. Experimentation
5. New research area (seed money to attract other contributors)
6. Research topics related to ANY robotic and unmanned systems area may be proposed, though proposals related to any CRUSER innovation thread are preferred.  (See website and above focus areas)
7. Alignment with the ASN (RD&A) Navy Unmanned Systems Goals
8. Researchers are members of the CRUSER Community of Interest
9. Proposals should aim to make an immediate impact on the community.

Faculty members who receive CRUSER funds are expected to be members of CRUSER AND fully active in supporting CRUSER’s goals to include (but not limited to): 

1. Monthly meeting attendance
2. A presentation at a monthly meeting and at the annual CRUSER TechCon
3. A CRUSER News article
4. Participation in CRUSER sponsored events
5. Contributions to the CRUSER Annual Report
6. Providing updated labor plans and budget projections as requested

Field Experimentation 18-3 Quicklook

4 June 2018 - 8 June 2018

ASN (RD&A) Unmanned Systems

Goals published 11 Jan 18

 

CRUSER Distributed Maritime Operations (DMO) 

Warfare Innovation Continuum (WIC)

Workshop September 2017 After Action Report 

FY17 CRUSER Annual Report Summary

FY17 CRUSER Annual Report

The Naval Postgraduate School is envisioning a new public-private facility near the main campus - the Sea, Land, and Air Military Robotics (SLAMR) facility.  The SLAMR facility will be a multi-domain distributed environment for integrated operational robotic/autonomous system education and research.  We are looking for your help to shape the future of this facility!

 

Request for Information (RFI) (CLICK HERE TO VIEW RFI)

Submit Conversation Proposals (CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT)

 

Event Dates

Initial Conversation – both Design and Operations

August 7th, 0900-1600 (PT), NPS Campus 

 

Design Focused Conversation I

21 August, 0900-1600 (PT), NPS Campus 

 

Operations Focused Conversation I

28 August, 0900-1600 (PT), NPS Campus 

 

Design Focused Conversation II

4 September, 0900-1600 (PT), NPS Campus 

 

Operations Focused Conversation II

11 September, 0900-1600 (PT), NPS Campus

For more information about the events or to submit comments regarding this facility, please email CRUSER@NPS.EDU with “SLAMR” in the subject line.

August 2018 CRUSER Monthly Meeting

Date: 13 August 2018

Time:  1200-1250 (Pacific Time (US & Canada))

Location:  ME Auditorium

Remote Connection:  https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2014002&username=&password=M.66F9FE61F58F1651000C7DFF65DA63

Dial-in:  571-392-7703 PIN 629 103 443 905

Agenda

1200-1215 – Dr. Brian Bingham: Welcome and CRUSER FY19 Call for Proposals Discussion

1215-1230 – Boon Hong Aaron Teow: Assessing Effectiveness of Using Combat UGV Swarm in Urban Operations

1230-1245 – Wee Leong Lee: Feasibility Assessment of sUAS-based FOD Detection System

1245-1250 – Closing Remarks

Warfare Innovation Continuum (WIC) Workshop 2018:

Cross-Domain Operations

 

The Impact of Robotics and Autonomy on the future battlespace

17-20 September 2018, Naval Postgraduate School

This CRUSER sponsored Warfare Innovation Continuum (WIC) Workshop is scheduled for 17-20 September 2018 as a Naval Postgraduate School Thesis & Research Week activity to apply emerging technologies to shape the way we fight. We use the tools of Design to rapidly generate concepts of interest to solve complex problems of interest to the fleet.

 

REGISTER to attend as an Observer, offer your services as a Mentor, or apply for a spot on a Concept Generation Team.
 

Background:  Starting in 2009, the NPS warfare innovation workshops have addressed self-propelled semi-submersibles, maritime irregular challenges, undersea weapons concepts and unmanned systems concepts generation. Participants in these workshops are junior officers from NPS, the fleet, and other DoD commands; and early career engineers from Navy laboratories, academia and industry. 

 

Workshop: Given the design challenge “How might emerging technologies enhance cross-domain operations?” small teams of junior officers from NPS and the fleet, and early career engineers from Navy labs, academia and industry will propose technologies and employment concepts in scenario based discussions.  Teams will brief their best concepts to sponsors, industry executives, and senior officers on the final morning of the workshop, and these results will be disseminated to fleet commands.

Selected concepts will begin CRUSER’s next Innovation Thread, and members of the CRUSER community of interest will be invited to further develop these concepts in response to the FY20 Call for Proposals. Technical members of the CRUSER community of interest will present proposals at a technical continuum gathering such as TechCon 2019 to test these selected concepts of interest in lab or field environments. A final report detailing process and outcomes will be released before the end of the 2019 calendar year to a vetted distribution list of leadership and community of interest members. Results of experimentation will be presented to the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in the summer of 2020.

Warfare Innovation Workshop orientation video

CRUSER.NPS.EDU

FIELD EXPERIMENTATION 19-1

NPS RoboDojo Website

RoboDojo Hours

Monday:         0830-1430
Tuesday:         0830-1430
Wednesday:   0830-1300
Thursday:        0830-1430
Friday:             Varies

The RoboDojo is located in Root Hall 125 A/B (On the library end of Root Hall)

We are open many other hours for workshops and other events, so come on in if you see our door open. We would welcome the opportunity to show you our lab resources and to discuss your thesis and personal projects.

Visit Our YouTube Channel

Additional Resources