Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific
The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific is the United States’ Navy research, development, test and evaluation, engineering and fleet support center for command, manipulation and communication systems and ocean surveillance.
SSC Pacific as it is popularly known gives information resources to maintain the joint war fighter in carrying out missions and force defense, and is the predecessor of the following organizations: the SSC San Diego, NRaD, NOSC and NUC, among others, where it has been involved in several aspects of robotic research since the early 60’s.
It was established in June 1, 1940 as the US Navy’s first West Coast lab. SSC Pacific has more than 3,400 civilian and military personnel, most of them engineers, scientists and technicians, devoted to developing technology in order to meet the department’s information needs of the future, and giving fleet support to keep existing information systems up and running.
SSC Pacific is one of SPAWAR’s field activities, which also include the Space and Naval Systems Center Charleston, the Space and Naval Warfare Center Norfolk, the Information Technology Center New Orleans, and the Space Field Activity.
SSC Pacific also hosts other activities, like the AUVSI annual Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition, which they have been actively sponsoring since 2002.
At SSC Pacific, robotic research and development have spanned the areas of air, ground, sea, and even underwater. Among its notable projects includes two Reconnaissance, Surveillance, and Target Acquisition (RSTA) oriented Unmanned Ground Vehicles, which was under the supervision of the US Marine Corps’ Exploratory Development Surveillance Program.
These two RSTA projects are the Ground Surveillance Robot and the Advanced Tele-operator Technology Tele-operated Dune Buggy. The SSC Pacific has also developed, in collaboration with the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, an autonomous navigation and obstacle avoidance unmanned surface vehicle. Here they focused on a truly autonomous water vehicle capable of avoiding obstacles, navigating autonomously, able to do path planning in a real world scenario.
