Autonomous Transport Innovation

The Autonomous Transport Innovation project converged sensor technolgies and interoperable V2G charging at the CBITEC living laboratory.

Vice President and Project Manager Angela Rolufs, President and Quality Manager Alice Reeves, Contracts Manager Christina Ross, and Project Engineer Amelia Trout, of Paragon Solutions, Inc. (Paragon), provided overall program development, management, and delivery of the Autonomous Transport Innovation: Integration of Autonomous Electric Transport Vehicles into a Tactical Microgrid research program for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL).

Paragon partnered with industry leading SMEs in the field of electric transport vehicles, vehicle autonomy, vehicle-to-grid (V2G) and microgrid technologies to deliver a technical research program to advance the state of the art of autonomous electric vehicles and contingency basing energy resiliency. The technical issues with the potential to impede the integration of autonomous electric transport vehicles into a microgrid were investigated and solutions documented for future application. Paragon and its team of SMEs developed a technical research program to enhance the military’s energy resiliency through bidirectional power flow resulting from the integration of autonomous electric transport vehicles into a tactical microgrid environment. Ultimately, the goals of this research were to accelerate military uptake of autonomous electric vehicles for defense transport operations and reduce reliance on vulnerable resupply operations that put war fighter’s lives at risk.

The effort under this BAA contract contributes to the mission of integration of autonomous vehicle technologies into defense transport operations with the development of an operational testing capability for autonomous technologies at an ERDC asset on Ft. Leonard Wood, the Contingency Basing Integration and Technology Evaluation Center (CBITEC).  The purpose of CBITEC is to allow industry the ability to assess and evaluate processes and technologies through an operational application in unknown and potentially contested military environments. In support of the integration of autonomous transport systems into defense transport operations, Paragon, and its team of subject matter experts (SME), developed a technical research, testing and demonstration program.  

 

The program provided operational testing plans for autonomous electric transportation technologies at the CBITEC, on FLW Army Installation.

ATI Research Objectives:

  • Identified military unique requirements for autonomous transport technologies;
  • Identified existing technologies that can be adapted for military applications and conduct technology gap analysis and identify ‘need’ gaps;
  • Identified research and operational tests for autonomous transport vehicles;
  • Investigated requirements for testing and demonstrating vehicle charging within tactical microgrid environment;
  • Developed requirements for a sensored living laboratory to assess performance of autonomous innovations; and
  • Integrated open standards to promote interoperability.