TechSolutions and Marines Bring a Decades-Old Process into the 21st Century

Assessing surf zone conditions has never been an exact science for the Department of the Navy. That’s about to change thanks to a recent request to TechSolutions, which has resulted in new surf observation (SUROB) technology to make operational forecasts more precise. 

Determining whether or not conditions are right for sending troops ashore is crucial to mission planning, but SUROB protocols currently in place use fairly rudimentary tools to do so. Warfighters rely mostly on their eyesight observations to estimate wave height and a ruler to measure water depth, and sometimes a tennis ball to determine current speed. 

“We were confident there was sensing technology to provide a better solution for Sailors and Marines to improve the accuracy of their surf observations,” said Jason Payne, director, TechSolutions – the rapid response program at the Office of Naval Research Global (ONR Global) that addresses warfighter needs by quickly developing science and technology-driven solutions. ONR Global is the international arm of ONR.  

“We already had some of the tools – satellite imagery, meteorological information, etc. What the warfighters needed was a way to collect all that data, pair it with in-situ sensing and fuse it into a user-friendly format,” he said.

For the past six months, a team of scientists and engineers from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) have been developing the technological tools needed to create a more precise surf observation report.  In order to gain greater insight into how the surf observation tool may improve warfighter operations, NavalX recently organized a workshop that brought together the science and engineering developers with the Sailors and Marines who would use it.

“I think for this workshop we had 10 or 12 different unique communities of people in the room,” said David Newborn , director, Centers for Adaptive Warfighting, NavalX . 

“Anytime that happens, there are pretty big aha moments that shake out from that. And I think that happened in a couple of different ways with this workshop. One, I think it happened from a user interface and user experience,” he said. “I also think there were some major insights into how these pieces of information – the modeling, simulation and data fusion – how those may impact what the operators actually see.” 

Newborn added that the workshop really helped define what the final end product should look and feel like to the user, especially the operators who are at the wheel of an amphibious vehicle or the tiller of a rubber raiding craft. 

“Having sort of these go/no-go, or red light, green light decision support tools is more important than the gigabytes of really fine-grain current and wave data,” Newborn said. “I think the development team came to some really important insights like we don't need to tell them everything about the current, but we do need to tell them, is the current good or is it bad?”

Lt. Col. Joseph Murphy , head of the Ground Combat Element branch, who is guiding the project for the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab (MCWL) said “The workshop allowed us to get the whole community of interest in the same room – the right people with the right quality, the right expertise and really refine what that output should be for the project.” 

Having spent a lot of time at sea, Murphy said he is very familiar with the challenges of operating in the surf zone. The new SUROB interface is designed to better inform a commander's risk assessment by utilizing all available sensing technologies. 

“The data that's generated from the video feeds or the camera images can paint the picture or show what the surf conditions are – that’s your wave height, your breaker height, where your breakers are and their direction, the depth bathymetry, nearshore currents like your rip tides,” he said. 

But the biggest innovation for SUROB – what Murphy called “the ultimate point of this program” is the app that can be downloaded by a Sailor or Marine on their laptop or tablet. The app ingests all of the data from all sources, then generates a surf observation report that is much more accurate than what the current protocol delivers. 

Murphy said, “The intent is that it'll output the MSI [Modified Surf Index], but it'll also give the go/no-go, or red, green, yellow criteria by vessel type. So the user will choose the vessel and based on what the conditions are, it'll say whether it's favorable, at the margins, or unfavorable for that vessel type.

Murphy added that not only will the surf observation tool inform risk factors for different vehicles, it can adjust more quickly to changes in the surf condition.  

“I’ve performed plenty of operations at sea where you had the satellite imagery and the beach surveys that were done ahead of time, but then the water depth was greater than they showed,” he said. “So, having the ability on the spot to use some sensor technology and have a tool like this is absolutely a great aid given the reality that the surface is constantly changing – and you never know when you need more accurate reports on the deck to facilitate your operations.” Murphy said. 

TechSolutions received the request less than a year ago for a technology-driven solution for surf observation from Maj. Zachary Taylor, a technology officer with the Marines’ Warfighting Lab. Within weeks, Payne said, TechSolutions began working with the development team at NRL and ERDC, as well as Taylor and Murphy, to come up with a prototype. 

“We knew almost immediately this would be an invaluable tool for our Sailors and Marines,” Payne said. “Surf observation should be precise. It should be able to adjust in real time as the conditions change above and below the water. But we needed Maj. Taylor to tell us what was wrong with the current process and ask us to help them make it better,” Payne said. “That’s what TechSolutions is all about.”

To submit a technology request, Sailors and Marines may contact TechSolutions directly at ONR_TechSolutions@navy.mil.  More information about the program may be found on their website: https://www.onr.navy.mil/Techsolutions/.