Airborne Just in Time Resupply in Austere Environments

摘要

Special operations and other dismounted small teams often experience critical supply shortages while operating away from a forward operating base in austere, hostile, and/or denied environments. In this work, novel approaches that leverage airborne technology were considered and pursued to provide just in time resupply to such teams. Work began with extensive background research with end-users and subject matter experts to establish a rigorous list of customer needs and design requirements. These data informed an extensive ideation process that employed numerous methods that elicit novel solution concepts. The concept proposed here is to employ a suite of sensors on the operators that interfaces with the Android Tactical Assault Kit (ATAK) to anticipate supply requirements, then deliver those mission essential supplies downrange in a repurposed GBU-39A or similar form-factor munition. Using a pre-approved form factor such as this will reduce development cost, improve accuracy, utilize existing logistics chains, reduce risk for resupply assets through an established standoff distance, and provide faster resupply than current methods. In this work, extensive analysis and initial subsystem testing was performed to establish feasibility of the concept.