Developing the Mine of the Future - The MADMAN (Maritime Area Denial Mine With Autonomous Navigation) - Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) for Mine Warfare, Unmanned Undersea Vehicles

This mid-2018 report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. The Maritime Area Denial Mine with Autonomous Navigation (MADMAN) project provides a means for asserting maritime dominance through integration of intelligence into mines. This project identifies a path toward reinvigorating mine warfare innovation to develop the mine of the future, MADMAN. Modeling and simulation tools reveal that the highest mission success probabilities support an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) option. By integrating current, available systems, a resulting system of systems provides a cost-effective means to develop a mine that is capable of autonomously transiting to a location, arming itself, performing missions, and increasing personnel safety. Using a capability engineering approach, this study identifies an overall target probability of success for the system of systems. This overall success probability decomposes the individual systems and highlights their level of impact on overall success. Analyzing these impacts allows tailoring of each system to provide improved mining and cost savings while meeting project requirements. Resulting collaboration between UUV designers and military engineers ensures a modern arsenal for a modern world.

Successful conduct of effective autonomous mine warfare hinges on the accomplishment of six key objectives. The system must not only provide access to target areas, avoid detection, and fit within current naval vessels but also arm/disarm mines following operator commands. This system must also dispose mines when commanded by disabling explosives in place after verification of an environment free of commercial and civilian traffic and achieve all of these goals with a significant reduction or elimination of risk to human life. This risk reduction comes from adding in autonomous features to the system, preventing the need for human interaction in multiple parts of the mission activity. Ultimately, the system must meet all of these goals with acceptable suitability traits, such as system reliability, operational availability, and probability of mission success. With these key objectives in mind, a system context diagram helped scope the effort while extensive research revealed existing capabilities and gaps to provide a starting point for expanding those technologies to achieve the mission.

Maritime Area Denial Mine with Autonomous Navigation (MADMAN) is a mine that exerts explosive force on adversary vehicles that enter in range of any sensors. These sensors respond to proximity, acoustic signature, or magnetic field from the adversary vehicle. With the definition of MADMAN understood, the investigation shifted to its deployment. Three alternatives appeared during the study for the deployment of MADMAN, 1) UUV, 2) Wave Glider, and 3) Aircraft. OV-1s depicted these three alternatives of how the MADMAN reaches the target location and decomposed system capabilities. The concept of operations detailed the separate phases of the operational activities within the system and potential scenarios. The four operational phases, pre-deployment phase, deployment phase, engagement phase, and post-engagement phase, demonstrated where portions of the mission begin and end while displaying which segments contain autonomous features or requirements.