Page 21: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (September 2022)

y dad was in the Coast Guard (for nearly 37 ing, recapitalizing the ? eet. I know there’s been a big emphasis years), so this is a way of life for me,” said on data infrastructure, increasing our IT systems to give our

Keane in explaining that a Coast Guard ca- people better tools within the Coast Guard. And we’ve seen

M reer “was just something I always knew I quite a few new just workplace tools roll out, modernizing wanted to do … it’s a family tradition for me.” our IT infrastructure. That’s going to continue in the next few

The Coast Guard R&D center in New London is “relatively years, and I think that of plays into (one of the areas of) Com- small with just over 80 people here at the RDC” said Ke- mandant Fagan’s workforce centric Commander’s intent.” ““““ ane, but the unit performs as if it were a much larger team As is the case in other industries, enhanced digital tools premised on a broad range of teaming and partnerships both mean more risk management and mitigation efforts are need- inside and out of the Department of Defense, with “about ed on the cyber security front, too. “We have a C5I and an IT 40 projects total in our portfolio, and about 10 to 12 new branch that are heavily focused on cyber (security issues),” projects each year.” The RDC has seven technical branches said Keane. While efforts on cyber security are always closely and regularly researches a broad swath of marine and related held information for obvious reasons, the RDC is involved technologies, spanning the full scope from below the water’s in multiple layers of ongoing projects, including one recent surface to the air. wrapped up where RDC partners with Johns Hopkins Applied “We look for about a three-year time span for each project,” Physics Lab to develop virtual Programmable Logic Control- said Keane. “And we’ve got several that span multi-missions, lers (PLCs) that would take over functions (while the system whether it’s C5I, IT, modeling simulation and analysis. And could be restored) in a scenario where, for example a cutter we also have a science technology and innovation center here system is hacked. that looks at more operational ready COTS and GOTS type of technology.” Exploring Autonomy

With its full pallet of research, Keane said looking deeper

A Broad Platter, A Laser Focus into autonomous systems “the cornerstone of our research

In recent years the Coast Guard itself has made moderniza- right now … almost everything feeds into making that a real- tion of technologies – from infrastructure to digitalization to ity.” As is the case in the commercial maritime sector, RDC’s new boats and ships – a point of focus, particularly important look into autonomy is multi-pronged, ? rst and foremost as as the pace of technology and innovation across the maritime a force multiplier to traditional crewed assets, but also as a sector continues at speed. major step in making maritime domain awareness and action “We’ve been in the process, for almost 15 years, in modern- more ef? cient and cost effective. In fact, during the interview, izing our ? eet,” said Keane. “Many of the cutters are well past one of the RDC’s autonomous boat assets was literally parked their originally intended service life … we’ve been moderniz- in the parking lot, an asset “used in Hawaii in 2020 that was www.marinelink.com 21

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