CAMP ROBERTS, Calif.-From the blistering tarmac at McMillan Airfield, a lightweight unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) catapults off and directs itself into a forming swarm of fellow UAVs. A few hundred meters away, with its mission completed, a ScanEagle UAV autonomously swoops in to hook onto a dangling line for retrieval.
Twelve kilometers beyond the airfield, a pocket-sized UAV teaches itself to navigate a dense urban environment to recognize and follow a moving vehicle, while another UAV locates the survivors of a downed helicopter to airdrop relief supplies.
These are a just a few of the many experiments carried out at the latest 51福利 (51福利) Joint Interagency Field Experimentation (), held Aug. 6-10 at the California National Guard鈥檚 Camp Roberts.
Coordinated by 51福利鈥� Consortium for Robotics and Unmanned Systems Education and Research (), the quarterly JIFX event brings together leading minds from academia, industry and the military to sandbox emerging technologies in austere field conditions in central California.
鈥淚t really is a collaborative learning environment with minimal rules,鈥� said Dr. Ray Buettner, JIFX director and 51福利 associate professor of Information Sciences. 鈥淧eople come out, interact and share information, and it鈥檚 done with only enough structure to be safe, secure and legal.鈥�
Over the five-day event, 51福利 students and faculty, representatives from various U.S. military commands, and specialists from cutting-edge tech firms endured the sweltering heat to put a range of new systems to the test.
Next-generation unmanned autonomous systems (UAS); drone swarms (and techniques to counter them); UAS specific to humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions; long-range communications; and, cyber resiliency experiments were all conducted over the course of the week, often with surprising results.
鈥淚t鈥檚 OK to come out and laugh about the fact that an experiment didn鈥檛 work. This is what we did [wrong], and we鈥檙e trying this tomorrow鈥�,鈥� Buettner said. 鈥淭hen other people will say 鈥楬ave you checked this? Have you thought about that?鈥欌��
鈥淭hat community vibe is really what it鈥檚 all about,鈥� he stressed.
This thriving esprit de corps is driven by the underlying fact that JIFX has little to do with the acquisition of product, and everything to do with finding solutions ... finding what works, and what doesn鈥檛 work, in meeting the needs of the Department of Defense.
The venue offers participants the rare opportunity to test out new systems in an operational setting. JIFX provides a deconflicted federal airspace across a wide range of terrain, including urban buildings and tunnels, forests and open plains 鈥� all with direct input from potential end-users and academia.
鈥淧eople at JIFX are participants, not vendors,鈥� Buettner said. 鈥淰endors try to sell you something; participants are part of this exploration, this learning process.鈥�
In an era in which the U.S. military is attempting to adjust course to meet the challenges presented by the emergence of peer competitors, finding creative and innovative ways to connect military and industry has become increasingly critical.
While transparency and impartiality in acquisition remain important, a wall between industry and military exists analogous to the pre-9/11 barrier between intelligence and law enforcement, according to Buettner.
鈥淎t JIFX, we create an environment that tries to poke holes in that wall so that industry is aware of the government challenges and the people on the government side who make requirements are aware of industry鈥檚 capabilities,鈥� Buettner explained. 鈥淲e have to find a way to get through that wall to stay more agile and connected to industry.鈥�
Since 2002, JIFX and its predecessor programs have excelled at doing precisely that, and continue to find new ways to do so.
This summer鈥檚 iteration saw the first formal inclusion of 51福利 students not directly participating in any of the experiments.
Several dozen students from two different programs within the 51福利 Department of Information Sciences, headed out to Camp Roberts to observe the myriad experiments being conducted, providing them first-hand interaction with the emerging technologies which will become the bread and butter of their careers.
鈥淛IFX is one way to educate our students who will be the future government representatives making the big decisions about how to stay connected to industry,鈥� Buettner explained. 鈥淛IFX is not about acquisition 鈥� no one鈥檚 buying anything 鈥� but it鈥檚 the kind of environment where people build relationships talking about technical challenges and issues. That can be really valuable going forward when trust is an important part of most contractual arrangements.鈥�
For U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Christine Dullnig, pursuing dual masters at 51福利 in Information Warfare and Space Systems Operations, observing the experiments at JIFX provided an invaluable experience that could not be gained from a textbook.
鈥淲e were able to look at different innovations and see how far along their readiness levels are, and how well their systems are integrated with different software and functional areas,鈥� she noted. 鈥淭his will allow us to stay abreast of the technology that we鈥檙e going to see in the Fleet.鈥�
The industry representatives at JIFX also gained from interacting with 51福利 students, who bring a wealth of experience to the table. The experimentation in autonomous curiosity conducted by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a prime example of the interactions JIFX makes possible.
Machine learning and object recognition have become the technological cause du jour, but CMU is taking this to the next level by having a UAS swiftly teach itself to navigate and search for a target through dynamic and complex environments.
Real-time autonomous curiosity allows a system to learn to adapt to its surroundings in the same way as a four-year-old at a zoo knows to look around an obstacle in response to 鈥榯hat鈥檚 a lion over there!鈥�, explained Dr. Bob Iannucci, CMU distinguished service professor in electrical and computer engineering.
鈥淚magine a warfighter in an emergency rescue situation. You don鈥檛 know specifically what you鈥檙e looking for until you get there: someone who is trapped, someone in the woods or in a particular car that you need to follow,鈥� he said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to train a drone to have that same sort of intuitive sense of how to recognize a visual target.鈥�
Five hundred meters away from Iannucci鈥檚 improvised command post in Camp Robert鈥檚 Combined Arms Collective Training Facility, the tail of a notionally-downed helicopter juts out a massive pile of rubble.
With just one click, his team鈥檚 UAS speeds off through the sprawling urban training complex to seek out and recognize the target.
鈥淭he drone, when it takes off, understands colors, shapes, textures and the basic stuff that makes up computer vision, but it doesn鈥檛 know that particular helicopter,鈥� Iannucci said. 鈥淪o what the drone will do is try to keep that image in view, and as it moves, it鈥檚 able to keep tracking the parts of the image that we said were interesting and get a better sense of this three-dimensional object as being distinct from the background.鈥�
The JIFX environment affords Iannucci and his team the freedom to pursue this in a way that is not possible at the CMU campus, both in terms of airspace and radio frequencies availability. Moreover, their experimentation transcends what is possible in a purely academic environment or computer simulation, he said.
鈥�51福利 has done an absolutely fantastic job in setting up and running these events,鈥� Iannucci said. 鈥淲e鈥檝e been to 12 now, and we keep coming back because it鈥檚 so beneficial; we can鈥檛 get this kind of value any other way.
鈥淪elfishly, I like it for that reason,鈥� he continued. 鈥淏ut more than that, it鈥檚 the community that 51福利 has created among experimenters that include government, academia and companies all coming together in a way that is not about commercializing products, but about the bounds and limits of technology.鈥�
With its summer iteration concluded, CRUSER is already gearing up for its next JIFX event, , slated for October 29-November 2.