Framework for Heterogeneous Multi-Domain Swarms to Improve Maritime Situational Awareness

This paper describes current development efforts for a Command and Control (C2) framework for utilizing heterogeneous multi-domain robotic swarms. The NEtworked X-domain Uncrewed Systems (NEXUS) framework aims at supporting the operations of dynamically composed heterogeneous robot swarms primarily consisting of Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Uncrewed Surface Vehicles (USVs), and Uncrewed Underwater Vehicles (UUVs). NEXUS aims at enabling and accelerating research and deployment efforts and utilization of Sensor Carrier Systems (SCSs) for an improved maritime situational awareness. Especially in the context of surveying and protecting critical maritime infrastructure, but also in the context of scientific exploration NEXUS could serve human operators as a highly flexible tool for researching robotics topics, gathering situational information and aggregating data into a cohesive data product.