Tracking And Data Fusion Scientist La Spezia

Tracking And Data Fusion Scientist
La Spezia
Liguria, La Spezia

1.

POST CONTEXT

This is a position at the Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE), which is part of the Science and Technology Organization (STO) of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

CMRE is an established, world-class scientific research and experimentation facility that organizes and conducts scientific research and technology development, centred on the maritime domain, delivering innovative and field tested Science & Technology (S&T) solutions to address defence and security needs of the Alliance.

The position is within the Research Division (RD) which is responsible for identifying, developing and delivering Science & Technology (S&T) solutions to the needs of the Alliance in the maritime domain.

The Division leads the development of CMRE's scientific strategy and through its capability in ocean sensing, numerical modelling, big data analytics, artificial intelligence and autonomy, delivers the Centre's S&T goals while maintaining CMRE's reputation within the scientific community.

The Research Division is comprised of the four following sections:

- Antisubmarine Warfare (ASW)

- Mine Countermeasures (MCM)

- Data & Environmental Knowledge and Operational Effectiveness (D-EKOE)

- Maritime Unmanned Systems Enablers (MUSE)

This position is within the ASW Section.

The ASW team seeks to develop, test and validate advanced concepts for unmanned ASW.

As part of the overall Maritime S&T Programme of Work, which contains two principal projects:

- Maritime Unmanned Systems for ASW (MUSA), and

- ASW Decision Support.

The focus of the MUSA project is on the development of advanced algorithms for the enhancement of the perception element of unmanned (static and dynamic) systems for ASW, a (growing) data science component, a parallel effort in advanced autonomy algorithm development, and a significant sea-going project where systems are tested in representative ASW environments, often against actual submarine targets.

In the perception enhancement area, advanced signal processing algorithms are created for the Detection, Localization, Classification and Tracking of submarine targets.

This work covers both passive and active ASW.

The incumbent will work in this area, focusing on Data Fusion and Tracking aspects of the ASW processing chain.

The Data Science part of the MUSA project aims at cataloguing (previously) acquired data and going towards a Machine Learning (ML) capability for submarine classification.

In the project's autonomy development area, high-level task allocation algorithms are developed alongside collaborative and single vehicle autonomy rules, with the objective to maximize the utility of unmanned systems as they manoeuvre to detect, localize, classify and track submarines.

The sea-going element includes participation in multi-national experiments for the development and testing of advanced ASW concepts in a collaborative environment, and participation in NATO ASW exercises.

**2.

PRINCIPAL DUTIES

- Conduct joint research activities in the ASW Section to work towards the common goal of improving the entire, integrated, ASW processing chain, i. e.

work together with target classification experts (AI), roboticists, signal processing experts, operations researchers and analysts;

- Plan activities, monitor and execute;

- Adopt data and metadata formats which fit the needs of CMRE;

- Harmonize software development efforts with respect of CMRE software best practices;

- Support the CMRE sea-going experiments with a focus on data collection, tracking and fusion, and real-time algorithms;

- Analyse data collected at sea (using KPIs) and report;

- Publish results both internally (CMRE reports), and externally in peer-reviewed journals.

**3.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS AND ADDITIONAL DUTIES

- a.

Flexibility Clause _

- The incumbent may be required to perform other related duties even in other parts of the organization as directed.

- As required by the Program of Work, the incumbent may be asked to participate in working groups or project teams and to coordinate and organize the work of other scientists and staff.

All other related duties should correspond with the required competencies for the job.

- b. Deployment/Travel _

The incumbent may be required to perform his/her duties onboard Centre or chartered vessels.

The incumbent may be required to undertake TDY assignments within and outside NATO boundaries.

**4.

ESSENTIAL QUALIFICATIONS

- a. Professional/Experience _

- Proven work experience as a scientist in the field of Tracking and Data Fusion;

- Strong research record as evidenced by peer-reviewed publications and/or technical reports.

- Expertise in statistical analysis;

- Expertise in signal

- and data processing;

- Proven ability to analyse large quantities of (experimental) data, to determine findings from the analysis (KPIS) and to report on them;

- Proven ability to develop algorithms in MATLAB or other scientific programming languages;

- b. Education/Tr