Leveraging Unmanned Systems for Coast Guard Missions (2020) / Chapter Skim
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6 Moving Forward
6 Moving Forward
Pages 101-114
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From page 101... ...
A major realignment of the Coast Guard's UxS approach is warranted. After reviewing the Coast Guard's many important, complex, varied, and demanding missions; observing that its fleet and operational forces are b eing increasingly taxed; finding that unmanned systems are being used today with high utility across the public and private sectors; and knowing that the technologies that enable and underpin these systems are advancing rapidly, the committee is struck by the magnitude and breadth of opportunity that lies ahead for the Coast Guard to pursue UxS in its multiple operational domains and across its many missions.
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From page 102... ...
Similar to the experiences of other military services, DHS operational units, and several other federal agencies, the Coast Guard has reached a point where purposeful and strategic steps are needed to exploit UxS more effectively and efficiently. Informed by these experiences, the committee recommends the following five steps.
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From page 103... ...
It is time, in the committee's view, for the Coast Guard leadership to offer that future vision, articulate strategies and objectives aimed at achieving it, and establish the appropriate organizational structures and lines of authority to deliver and integrate UxSs across the force structure. Other military services, including the Navy, and other federal agencies, most recently the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
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From page 104... ...
In either form, the documents are intended to convey urgency to senior leadership and to galvanize the need for change across the Service -- from shifting budget priorities and adjusting acquisition policies to making investments in supportive R&D and personnel recruitment and training. DESIGNATE A SENIOR UxS CHAMPION While the Coast Guard is small when compared to the Navy and other military services, it is nevertheless a large organization with a complex -- and in places stove-piped -- bureaucratic structure.
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From page 105... ...
While the intra- and inter-organizational challenges the Coast Guard faces in furthering a UxS strategy differ in magnitude from those faced by the much larger Navy, they are comparable in nature and seem to warrant comparable solutions. Thus, learning from the experience of the Navy, the Commandant should designate a top Coast Guard official, at the Flag Officer or Senior Executive Service levels, to advocate for and advance the Commandant's UxS strategy.
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From page 106... ...
STAND UP A UxS PROGRAM OFFICE As noted above, the Coast Guard has made a series of organizational realignments over the past decade to improve operational effectiveness and to deliver mission support services more efficiently. Critical to this effort has been the establishment of new headquarters organizations, including a Deputy Commandant for Operations, Deputy Commandant for Mission Support, and Force Readiness Command (FORCECOM)
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From page 107... ...
Much like NOAA's nascent UxS Operational Office, a dedicated Coast Guard UxS program office could play a leadership and coordinating role in sustaining and expanding the use of UxS capabilities across Coast Guard operational forces. More importantly, a UxS program office would be charged with fostering an organizational environment -- administratively, culturally, and operationally -- in which the Coast Guard is not only ready, willing, and able to leverage UxS technologies, but also increasingly enter prising and opportunistic in exploiting their capabilities.
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From page 108... ...
Roadmap development requires an understanding of the Coast Guard's starting point with UxSs. The inventory of recent, ongoing, and planned UxS programs and activities presented in Chapter 4 makes clear that the Coast Guard is not a UxS novice, but its efforts are largely ad hoc and fragmented -- lacking a common evaluation framework, a means to disseminate
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From page 109... ...
To facilitate these external partnerships and the Coast Guard's own internal deployments of UxSs, the program office should work on an ongoing basis with mission support units responsible for functions such as acquisitions, legal compliance, personnel hiring and training, and information technology to ensure that their practices, processes, and investments are increasingly suited to the expeditious introduction and use of UxS technologies. In some cases -- as discussed in Chapter 3 -- the rapid introduction of UxS may be accomplished through the creative or innovative use of existing legal, regulatory, and policy frameworks, but in some cases, they may not.
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From page 110... ...
EXPAND AND NORMALIZE UxS EXPERIMENTATION As discussed in Chapter 4, the Navy created two operational units dedi cated to UxS experimentation, one focused on unmanned underwater v ehicles (UUVs) and one on unmanned surface vessels (USVs)
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From page 111... ...
In briefings, NAVSEA leadership explained that it either builds prototypes for the field to test or it provides commercially available technology to the field to test.6 The Navy leverages its substantial infrastructure for testing and experimentation including simulation, war games, and test ranges. As an example, the objective of the Advanced Naval Technology Exercises program is to expose UxSs to a larger operational community to assess readiness levels, possible applications, and even manpower implications.
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From page 112... ...
The committee's use of "systematic" refers to robust experimentation campaigns that are designed to test concepts over a range of operational scenarios and with applications directed at near-, mid-, and long-term objectives. A body of literature exists on the use of such experimental methods, including the DOD Prototyping Guidebook,10 DOD Experimentation Guidebook,11 The Role of Experimentation in Building Future Naval Forces,12 and The Role of Experimentation Campaigns in the Air Force Innovation Life Cycle.13 Recognizing the important role that operational evaluation plays in moving systems into field use, the DHS Science & Technology (S&T)
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From page 113... ...
GET A FIX ON UxS FUNDING NEEDS The Coast Guard's application of UxS technologies to date appear to be paying off and will likely continue to yield incremental benefits even if pursued in a limited and highly targeted manner as the technologies leveraged from the commercial sector and spun off from Navy and other military investments become more reliable, capable, and affordable. In foregoing the fuller range of potential benefits, however, the Coast Guard risks the foreclosing of potential opportunities to capitalize on UxS capabilities as it makes investments in long-lived assets and the recruitment, training, and deployment of personnel with only nominal or partial regard for the potentially transformative technological developments on the horizon.
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From page 114... ...
Given the Coast Guard's need to be opportunistic and enterprising in leveraging other organizations' technologies, the study should consider the likely advances in UxS capabilities and affordability, as well strategic partnerships with other services and federal agencies, to enable cost-saving economies of scale. The study should also recognize that investment in UxS may not be accompanied by opportunities to significantly reduce spending on manned assets and operations, but will nevertheless be vital to supporting efficient and capable hybrid operations to fulfill the Coast Guard's critical missions.
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