MIRAMAR, CALIFORNIA (2/13/2022) – NavalX SoCal Tech Bridge is pleased to announce the upcoming Project Vesta experiment. The first iteration, hosted February 14-18, 2022, during the Naval Postgraduate School’s Joint Interagency Field Experimentation (JIFX) 22-2 aboard Camp Roberts, CA, is a critical step in the evolution of faster, safer, and more effective wildfire control and mitigation.
Wildfires are a wicked problem continually growing in severity and scope, especially in the California region. The threat to people, wildlife, natural and commercial resources, and the environment is profound and long-lasting. Those committed to fighting fires face significant challenges and are left with little room for error, but much room for improvement. Supported by the Department of Defense, SoCal Tech Bridge is aiming to develop an autonomous fire mitigation prototype that combines state-of-the-art technology and Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) equipment to identify risk, reduce response time, and support mitigation efforts.
“This is exactly the type of meaningful design and development that we want to encourage,” says Major Steven Harvey, Director of the SoCal Tech Bridge. He continues, “The Project Vesta leadership team of SoCal Tech Bridge, TESIAC, and CANA, LLC, is looking forward to continuing this work along with a committed team of innovators. These people – and their organizations – are industry leaders bringing their best products and ideas to bear on this global problem.”
The partners working to develop the Project Vesta solution also include Arcimoto, BEAM Global, DANNAR, Komodo Fire Systems, Parallel Flight Technologies, Hen Nozzles, and JuiceBar. The team will collaborate to experiment with the integration of sophisticated and newly developed technologies, in concert with other firefighting assets. The program goals are persistent fire surveillance, analytics capabilities enabled by edge computing, and rapid interoperability. The February experiment is part of an iterative design process that will continue throughout 2022 and synthesize lessons learned. If successful, Project Vesta is anticipated to support continuous terrain mapping, accurate fuel analysis, immediate fire identification, and the timely delivery of suppressant agents in active fires.
About SoCal Tech Bridge:
The SoCal Tech Bridge leverages the Southern California convergence of Installations, Industry, and Research to unlock emerging technology through non-traditional partnerships. The SoCal Tech Bridge is built around the philosophy that collaborative markets can be established that enable mutually beneficial opportunities for the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Commercial Industry to partner. These collaborative efforts are the foundation for a better business model unlocking the future of DoD Research & Development requirements development and prototyping. Our technical focus areas - Installation Protection, Resilience, Mobility, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Autonomous Systems - are woven throughout our collaborative efforts and vision.
Press Contact: K. McRostie | socaltbpress@gmail.com