By Javier Chagoya

NPS Department of Systems Engineering student Lt. Robert Smith, above, looked to fill an urgent capability gap that could balance resource allocation for air defense and Ballistic Missile Defense systems. In his thesis, "Requirements for a Navy Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) Mission Planner," Smith addresses the front end systems engineering effort required for the Navy to make informed developmental and acquisition decisions with regards to an IAMD Mission Planner.

"There was a stakeholder summit held at Naval Air and Missile Defense Command (NAMDC) in Dahlgren to demonstrate current Navy mission planner capabilities and define user needs for an IAMD mission planner. This information was used in the thesis to conduct a system's requirements analysis for that IAMD mission planner," said Smith.

Smith was just one of a handful of top student theses nominated for this quarter's Surface Navy Association Award for Excellence in Surface Warfare Research. Collectively, the nominees demonstrate a diverse, impressive array of relevant research.

Ultimately, it was NPS Department of Oceanography student, Lt. Loney Cason III, who was selected to receive the award. His thesis seeks to determine the effectiveness of a drift/reposition technique for constant acoustic sensing of a general target.

"I'm using an unmanned aerial vehicle system called the AquaQuad, a quad-rotor craft developed at the NPS Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. It's capable of landing on the ocean surface and deploying a passive acoustic sensor on a tethered reel," said Cason.

The research utilizes ocean models to identify currents and tides, which help determine deployment location with a maximum probability of detection. Cason says the research can assist the development of the next generation of sonobuoys, in addition to a demonstration of fast sampling and detection techniques.