AEDC's Rob Merrill presents a Technical Excellence Seminar on 'tracking small UAVs in an urban environment'

  • Published
  • By Philip Lorenz III
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  More than 30 AEDC employees attended Rob Merrill's recent Technical Excellence Seminar on his experience 'tracking small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in an urban environment.'

Merrill, an Air Force project manager with the Propulsion Wind Tunnel Complex at AEDC, spent six months of his first year with the complex on a temporary duty assignment at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, with the Air Force Research Laboratory's (AFRL) 2012 Commander's Challenge.

After being contacted to consider applying for the assignment, Merrill said, "When the call first came out, I thought 'that sounds like fun' and I went home and talked to my wife about it, but she didn't really want to do it, having just bought a house and [with] a 6-month-old daughter to take care of. But then an email came from Lt. Col. [Leland] Davis (AEDC Propulsion Wind Tunnel Ground Complex director), who really encouraged me to do something like this for the same reason I had been considering it - that it's going to be a great experience, a once in a lifetime opportunity.

"That really pushed me to go ahead and apply for it. As I left, I had the full support of the leadership here and that was greatly appreciated."

Those leading the AFRL Commander's Challenge invited Air Force Materiel Command's junior workforce to apply to participate in a 6-month design challenge to detect and track small UAV's in an urban environment. Two teams competed to develop the most innovative and effective solution to the problem.

The focus of this year's Commander's Challenge was inspired by news of a foiled remote-controlled airplane attack on the Pentagon. The goal of the two teams was to develop technical solutions aimed at defeating potential threats posed by small, ultra-light aircraft technologies, both manned and radio-controlled (RC).

The design for Merrill's Wright-Patterson team, which won the competition, involved a distributed and scalable array of acoustic, visual and smart phone sensors. The team performed most programming and manufacturing activities for development. They created custom algorithms and software for acoustic sensors, smart phones and overall sensor integration. The system was demonstrated in a simulated operational environment at Twenty-nine Palms Marine Base, Calif.

Merrill explained the approach, design and demonstrated results during his presentation at AEDC. He also expressed his enthusiasm for the opportunity to do some "hands-on" engineering work.

"This [experience] was an opportunity to go and have a look-see at what the rapid product development world looks like and also being able to get in the shop, get your hands dirty," he said. "That was one of the parts that I really enjoyed."

When Merrill opened the floor for questions, several of those attending his presentation were ready to ask about the project.

"I asked Rob something like, 'If I wanted to defeat your system, what would I do,'" said Dr. Douglas Blake, AEDC Executive Director. "I was curious to see if they had 'red teamed' their solution, at least on paper. Doing so often produces a stronger solution and yields a better understanding of the system's strengths and weaknesses."

Blake said he was not only impressed by Merrill's presentation, but also had a positive impression of what the team had accomplished during the 6-month task.

"I thought Rob and his team did an exceptional job," Blake said. "They carefully considered their operating environment and developed an innovative solution to the problem. I was especially impressed by the team's incorporation of Android-phone-based cameras into their solution, thereby potentially bringing a large number of essentially free sensors to bear on their problem. I thought that was a very creative way to scale their solution in a real-world situation at little or no cost."

Blake added, "I'm a strong proponent of activities like the AFRL Commander's Challenge. I believe such activities not only provide invaluable experience in engineering problem solving, but they also teach you how to operate under the pressures of deadlines and limited budgets. Furthermore, they are an ideal forum in which to cultivate interpersonal skills as well as learn conflict resolution and team dynamics. I believe proficiency in all of these areas is essential to be truly successful in the engineering profession."

1st Lt. Carl Tegtmeier, a junior AEDC turbine test project manager, agreed with Blake's assessment of his colleague's presentation and the Commander's Challenge program.

"I would imagine that a program like the Commander's Challenge would instill a strong sense of teamwork and competition in an Air Force junior force member," Tegtmeier said. "Opportunities like this are rare in government work and can build a lot of valuable skills, not to mention it sounds like a lot of fun."

Merrill, who enjoyed the fast-paced environment of the Commander's Challenge, enjoys writing computer code and is also pursuing a new hobby, flying R.C. aircraft.