United States

Traditional analyses of high-speed craft (HSC) hydrodynamics depend on experimental, semi-empirical, and numerical approaches that can be computationally expensive and poorly suited for applications. This work presents a Neural Ordinary Differential Equation (Neural ODE) framework for learning the continuous-time dynamics directly from experimental data. Rather than discretizing the equations of motion, the model infers a smooth latent flow that maps sensor inputs to the vessel’s dynamic response. Trained with a noise-injection scheme to enhance robustness under perturbations, the Neural ODE achieves high accuracy in one-step-ahead prediction across calm-water and regular-wave conditions.
Additionally, this work will be extended and compared with discrete-time sequence models such as (TCN, LSTM). These results highlight the potential of continuous-time neural models for real-time hydrodynamic simulation and autonomous-vessel prediction within the broader context of computing with physical systems.

NAML 2026

Neural Ordinary Differential Equation (Neural ODE) framework for learning the continuous-time dynamics from experimental data

neural odes

time-series forecasting

hydrodynamics

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The 10th Annual Workshop on Naval Applications of Machine Learning (NAML 2026) was held in San Diego, California, March 2-5, 2026. NAML is a forum for interdisciplinary experts from government, industry, and academia to discuss results of ongoing research on theory and applications of machine learning to address some of the most challenging problems faced by our naval forces. 



Hierarchical Spiking Density: An Event-Based Implementation of HDBSCAN using Neuromorphic Framework

Abstract
The rapid growth of edge-based sensors requires unsupervised learning algorithms capable of processing asynchronous, high-velocity data streams under strict power constraints. This is particularly critical for Event-Based Sensor (EBS) object tracking applications, where immediate, localized cluster analysis is necessary to identify and track objects from high-speed, noisy sensor data. While density-based clustering, specifically Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN), is a standard for identifying clusters of arbitrary shapes, it struggles with data containing varying density gradients and requires sensitive hyperparameter tuning. The hierarchical extension, H-DBSCAN, mitigates these issues by constructing a hierarchy of cluster stability, but its traditional recursive implementation is computationally prohibitive for real-time, resource-constrained neuromorphic hardware.
This research proposes a novel Spiking Neural Network (SNN) architecture that approximates the HDBSCAN algorithm, simulated within a specific Neuromorphic Computing Framework. This SNN-based H-DBSCAN is designed to efficiently perform the clustering required for EBS object tracking. By triggering a wave-front propagation of spikes, the network inherently computes a Minimum Spanning Tree (MST) equivalent through a "first-to-fire" mechanism. A multi-tiered topology integrates spikes over varying temporal windows, effectively constructing a tree diagram of cluster persistence to extract stable clusters without prior knowledge of the data's scale.
The proposed architecture will be validated through edge and hardware-in-the-loop implementation targeting traditional CUDA based devices and by FPGAs. The SNN design will be synthesized using a known framework neuro-processor backend, configured for a small neuron array with sparse connectivity. Results will include the comparison between the SNN and CUDA based implementation of the network based on accuracy, speed, and power consumption of each platform.



Hierarchical Spiking Density: An Event-Based Implementation of HDBSCAN using Neuromorphic Framework

Naval radar systems operating near the 3.55–3.7 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band face an increasingly complex RF environment, sharing spectrum with dense commercial networks and non-cooperative emissions. In coastal and port regions, these sources introduce clutter-like artifacts and reduce receiver sensitivity, particularly when atmospheric ducting extends the reach of land-based LTE/5G networks. Because this interference can erode radar performance long before operators notice visible degradation, there is a critical need for methods that not only detect interference but also quantify its impact on mission capabilities.

To address this, we present a two-stage machine learning framework designed to enhance both situational awareness and detection resilience in congested spectrum. First, we introduce RFI-Net, a physics-guided U-Net architecture that analyzes time–frequency data to characterize the spectral environment. Unlike simple energy detectors, RFI-Net learns the distinct signatures of radar waveforms, 5G OFDM blocks, narrowband tones, and impulsive bursts. A custom physics-guided loss function enables the model to separate interference from the underlying noise floor, providing operators with a real-time spectral occupancy map. This allows for the direct quantification of spectral interference map, enabling proactive adaptation of radar parameters if needed. 

Secondly, we developed a Convolutional Recurrent Neural Network (CRNN) detector capable of identifying radar pulses in extreme low-SINR regimes that can be used for CBRS Environmental Sensing Capability (ESC) sensors. While current FCC regulations for CBRS-ESC sensors require detection down to approximately -89 dBm/MHz our CRNN model achieves >99% detection probability at -10 dB SINR. This is an improvement of nearly 30 dB over standard regulatory baselines. By leveraging both local spectral features and temporal dependencies, the model maintains high recall even when radar pulses are submerged beneath structured OFDM signals or bursty wideband noise. 

We validated this framework on a comprehensive dataset comprising NTIA-specified radar waveforms mixed with realistic LTE/5G traffic and heterogeneous interference sources (tones, harmonics, and nonstationary bursts). The resulting system is highly efficient: the detector operates on single spectrogram snapshots with sub-4 millisecond inference latency. While the proposed approaches offer a radar detection capability for coastal monitoring and ESC applications, similar architectures provide detection of 5G waveform detection at naval radar receivers as well that can potentially provide enhanced RFI mitigation and situational awareness in shared spectrum environments.


Deep Learning for Resilient Spectrum Sharing: Physics-Guided Interference Mapping and Low-SINR Radar Detection in the CBRS Band

AI-Enhanced Undersea Signal Processing for Long-Range Vessel Classification

The ability to detect and classify surface vessels at long ranges—beyond visual and radar limits—is critical for distributed maritime operations and decision superiority. Acoustic sensing platforms offer unique advantages for this mission, yet classification remains challenging due to highly non-stationary signals, pervasive environmental clutter, and limited labeled datasets. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has identified this capability as a research priority. Avathon AI proposes an innovative approach that fuses physics-based modeling with advanced machine learning to deliver robust performance in complex acoustic environments.
Our framework integrates multiple technical components:
• Physics + AI Hybrid Models to improve acoustic imaging and classification beyond traditional statistical methods.
• Mass Feature Construction (MFC) across MFCC, spectral, wavelet, and time-domain features to identify predictive patterns at scale.
• Transformer-Based Architectures, including Masked Spectrogram Modeling (MSM-MAE), for unsupervised labeling and resilient embeddings in cluttered environments.
• Data Augmentation leveraging large public acoustic datasets to bootstrap models for naval-specific signatures.
This approach enables rapid adaptation to new vessel classes with minimal labeled data, improves classification accuracy under distortion and interference, and supports operational decision-making at the tactical edge. During the proposed 20-minute session, Avathon will demonstrate feature construction workflows, transformer-based classification on representative datasets, and discuss transition pathways for ONR and NIWC Pacific programs focused on ISR, undersea warfare, and multi-domain awareness.
Avathon AI brings over a decade of experience delivering AI/ML solutions for government and industry, including recent acoustic projects with NSWC. Our proven track record in predictive maintenance, ISR fusion, and autonomy platforms positions us as a strong partner for advancing naval AI capabilities.

AI-Enhanced Undersea Signal Processing for Long-Range Vessel Classification

The maritime industry relies heavily on the Automatic Identification System (AIS) to enhance navigational safety and ensure effective vessel traffic management.[1] AIS is a tracking system that enables ships to communicate their position, speed, heading, and other vital data with one another and with shore-based authorities.[1] However, the efficacy of AIS can be severely compromised when anomalies in the data occur.[2] These anomalies can arise from various sources, including equipment malfunctions, data entry errors, environmental interferences, and intentional malicious actions such as data spoofing.[2]

Such anomalies pose significant risks to maritime safety, security, and operational efficiency, leading to potential accidents, navigational errors, and even legal issues for vessel operators.[2] For instance, an undetected AIS anomaly may result in a vessel being unaware of a nearby ship, increasing the risk of collision. Moreover, anomalies may mask illegal activities such as unauthorized fishing, piracy, or human trafficking, challenging law enforcement and regulatory agencies tasked with maintaining maritime order. The failure to detect these anomalies in real-time can have dire consequences for both vessels and marine ecosystems, highlighting the critical need for robust anomaly detection solutions.[2]

Despite the importance of effective AIS monitoring, traditional methods of data analysis struggle to keep pace with the sheer volume and velocity of maritime traffic data generated daily.[1] As the number of vessels in commercial shipping increases, so does the complexity of data interpretation.[1] [2] To address these significant challenges, there is a growing trend toward integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) technologies into maritime safety frameworks.[2] AI and ML possess the capacity to analyze large volumes of AIS data in real-time, identifying irregular patterns and potential anomalies that may escape human attention.[2] For example, supervised learning models can be trained on historical AIS data to recognize the typical behavior of vessels in various maritime environments, allowing them to flag deviations as potential anomalies.
Moreover, AI methods can integrate various sources of information, such as weather data, historical traffic patterns, and even satellite imagery, to provide a contextual understanding of vessel behaviors, enriching the analysis and improving detection capabilities.[2] 

References: 

[1] Yang, D., Wu, L., Wang, S., Jia, H., & Li, K. X. (2019). How big data enriches maritime research–a critical review of Automatic Identification System (AIS) data applications. Transport reviews, 39(6), 755-773.

[2] Lee, E., Mokashi, A. J., Moon, S. Y., & Kim, G. (2019). The maturity of automatic identification systems (AIS) and its implications for innovation. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering, 7(9), 287.

Anomalies in Automatic Identification System (AIS) Maritime Traffic Data

Purpose
The Navy’s introduction of Unmanned Surface Vessels (USVs) into distributed maritime operations requires new approaches to maintenance, readiness, and lifecycle management. Sustainment models designed for crewed platforms depend on manual inspection and reactive maintenance actions, which are not suitable for autonomous or semi-autonomous systems expected to operate persistently, at distance, and in degraded communications environments. This effort explores the application of artificial intelligence (AI) and data-driven methods to enable predictive, condition-based, and adaptive sustainment for the PMS 420 sUSV fleet.
Methodology
The architecture is designed to support integration of multiple data sources, including sensor telemetry, maintenance and configuration records, and operational context, within a unified data environment. 
A key capability currently demonstrated is the use of a generative AI (GenAI) interface that enables users to interact with the system in natural language rather than traditional query syntax. This interface leverages retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and adaptive agent workflows to allow maintainers, engineers, and analysts to obtain contextual information, system insights, and maintenance recommendations through conversational interaction.
The architecture is designed for secure operation within DoD environments and aligns with DISA STIG, NIST SP 800-53, and IL4/IL5 compliance requirements. Model performance, data provenance, and decision traceability are continuously monitored. The framework supports future integration with Navy logistics systems and Digital Twin environments to enable predictive simulation and fleet-wide readiness assessments.
Results
Initial demonstrations focus on the GenAI interface and its ability to simplify human–machine interaction for maintenance and sustainment tasks. The system has shown that natural-language engagement can reduce diagnostic and troubleshooting time by making technical data more accessible to non-specialist users. Future work will focus on connecting live and historical data sources to further enhance predictive and condition-based capabilities.
Impact
This effort advances the concept of sustainment autonomy by establishing a scalable and secure framework that can evolve as data sources and operational requirements mature. The GenAI-driven interface represents a practical step toward enabling consistent, data-informed decision support across distributed maritime environments. The work contributes to PMS 420’s and the Navy’s broader objective of maintaining readiness through data-centric processes, intelligent automation, and continuous learning systems. By leveraging AI to augment, not replace, human expertise, the approach enhances the speed, transparency, and resilience of sustainment operations in support of future distributed fleet concepts.


From Data to Decision: An AI-Powered Sustainment Platform Enabling Predictive Readiness Across the USV Fleet

Modern destroyers generate far more engineering data than humans can interpret in real time. Legacy maintenance models using planned and casualty maintenance supported by tools like ICAS (Integrated Condition Assessment System) struggle to recognize anomalies in the data streams or turn this deluge of data into actionable recommendations that integrate into sailor workflows.

This talk introduces ERMv4, the Navy's Enterprise Remote Monitoring system which turns roughly 7,000 hull, mechanical, and electrical sensor readings per second into recommendations that feed the ship’s existing maintenance planning system. This shift has moved condition-based maintenance (CBM) from concept to operational tool on USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62).

We focus on three themes that connect ML research with naval requirements and fielded impact: 

ML at the tactical edge. 

ERMv4 enables the MLOps data flow for models to learn from noisy, heterogeneous sensor data across pumps, motors, power distribution, and auxiliary systems. Delivering useful signals from tactical platforms demands time-series preprocessing, anomaly and degradation modeling when failure labels are rare, and handling non-stationary behavior after maintenance or configuration changes. We also cover edge-compute realities: packaging models for afloat deployment, operating under SWaP and bandwidth limits, handling DDIL connectivity, and safely updating models on ships underway for months within policy and accreditation constraints. 

Human-in-the-loop maintenance. 

ERMv4 is built so the computer does not “boss” sailors around. Recommendations are ranked, explained, and integrated into existing maintenance systems in ways that leverage sailor expertise and reduce alert fatigue. UI and workflow choices make it clear why a recommendation is being made, how confident the system is, and what evidence backs it up. We share early lessons on trust: what ship’s force accepts, what they push back on, and how the system must evolve so sailors feel supported, not treated like warehouse workers executing AI-generated task lists. 

Fleet-level implications. 

ERMv4 is one of the first AI programs-of-record continuously monitoring ship health and offers a template for scaling CBM across classes and platforms. We discuss how consistent data models, shared anomaly patterns, and common integration points with Navy logistics and maintenance systems can support Distributed Maritime Operations and higher availability, and how “assured autonomy” for CBM—demonstrating model behavior, reliability, and limits—can build durable trust in recommendations. 

Attendees will leave with a grounded case study of naval ML running on the deck plates, plus practical lessons for building and deploying ML systems that sailors actually use in the fight.

Machine Learning at Sea with Speed: ERMv4 and Condition-Based Maintenance for Mission-Ready Destroyers

Machine-learning enabled surrogates are increasingly used to emulate complex high-energy-density physics (HEDP) phenomena, yet the scarcity of high-fidelity, multi-material shock-propagation datasets remains a major barrier to advancing predictive modeling and inverse design capabilities for defense-relevant applications. The Perturbed Layered Interface (PLI) partition of the High-Explosives and Affected Targets (HEAT) dataset addresses this gap by providing time-resolved simulations of explosive-driven shocks interacting with heterogeneous materials. Within the PLI dataset, a fixed material suite subjected to varied initial interface perturbations produces a wide range of plastic deformation outcomes, enabling systematic study of geometry-dependent shock dynamics.

Using this dataset, we develop an inverse-design framework that reconstructs probable initial configurations given only the final, post-shock material morphologies. Our approach leverages machine-learning models trained on PLI simulations to infer a distribution of initial conditions consistent with an observed final deformation. These inferred distributions are subsequently validated through forward simulations that propagate the inferred initial states to late-time outcomes, demonstrating strong agreement with target morphologies. This bidirectional modeling capability provides a physics-informed pathway for linking final observable signatures to their causal shock-driven origins.

Our results highlight the utility of high-fidelity simulation datasets for learning complex multi-material shock behavior and demonstrate an end-to-end inverse design protocol relevant for verification of explosive-driven systems, assessment of material responses under extreme loading, and the development of ML-based decision tools for naval and defense applications.


Inverse Design of Shock-Driven Material Deformation Using Machine Learning and the PLI Dataset

A single agent represents a single system capable of ingesting local data, indexing, cataloging information, performing knowledge pattern discovery, and separating patterns and
anomalies from data. Multiple agents work collaboratively in a peer-to-peer network. Each agent has a peer list. Such multiple agents’ collaboration can be modeled as cooperative games. Each
agent optimizes its own objective locally. We show that each agent self-organizes or converges to its best value and the whole agent network achieves the best social welfare based on both the quantum adiabatic evolution transformation (QAET), and quantum intelligence game (QIG) or the QAET-QIG framework. 

The contributions of this paper are summarized as follows:
1) We show that a multi-agent quantum system converges to an equilibrium state which has a high degree of purity and coherence via a QAET-QIG evolution in a super-positioned torus. The convergence results in an equilibrium and measurable property or quantum theoretic value
(QTV) of the system that is optimized. We demonstrate the QAET-QIG framework and show two theorems, one algorithm used to score new data for quantum values, and compare them with the traditional QAET.
2) We apply the QAET-QIG framework to the kill web concept that potentially improve the traditional kill chain process such as find, fix, track, target, engage, and assess
(F2T2EA). The improvement is measured in the values of powerful global optimization, distributed lethality, and load balancing. 

We show a use case of the QAET-QIG framework to a potential application of mixed sensors, platforms, weapons, and effects.

Disclaimer: The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as others or representing the official policies, either expressed or implied of the U.S. Government.

Kill Webs by Collaborative & Self-organizing Agents (CSOAs)

GNSS is critical to accurate Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) solutions in many naval applications, but is susceptible to jamming and interference. Therefore, methods to maintain a user’s position in the absence of consistent GNSS are highly sought after. We propose our method to address GNSS-denied pedestrian navigation, named the Machine-learning Aided gait Recognition for Inertial Navigation and Orientation (MARIO) system. MARIO uses three main components to estimate a user’s position and orientation: 1) microelectro-mechanical system (MEMS) IMU sensors mounted on different parts of the body, 2) a convolutional neural network (CNN) that estimates movement velocity based on the sensor’s raw IMU data, and 3) a Kalman filter which takes the sensor’s raw IMU and the CNN’s speed estimation as inputs, and outputs the user’s estimated position. In this presentation, we demonstrate the latest advancements in our fully developed real-time navigation system. These advancements include improved data-collection and processing methods that allow for dynamic movements, wireless communication integration and monitoring, as well as camera and phone-app integration. The MARIO system was able to achieve under 1% error over total distance traveled in fully GNSS-denied environments (USS Midway). We will showcase detailed results of our system’s performance, including photos of our demonstrations conducted over the previous year.

GNSS-Denied Pedestrian Navigation in Real-Time using CNNs

Large Language Model (LLM) agents increasingly rely on external tools to accomplish complex tasks, and how they scaffold tool invocations can influence both efficiency and reliability of the agent. 

The classic Model Context Protocol (MCP) requires an LLM agent to emit a structured JSON “tool‑call” that is parsed by an intermediary before execution. Code‑Mode, by contrast, lets the LLM write short programs that call typed MCP bindings inside a sandboxed runtime; because models are trained on extensive code corpora, this approach may allow agents to compose multiple tool calls more naturally and with fewer tokens. 

A second dimension—inter‑agent communication—has received comparatively little systematic study. In hierarchical or multi‑agent settings, an agent often delegates subtasks to subordinate agents that in turn invoke tools. We examine three inter‑agent communication modalities: 

- Direct: Code‑Mode calls between agents’ MCP bindings. 
- Classic: MCP messages that encode tool requests. 
- Natural‑language: queries that the receiving agent must interpret before acting. 

To compare these modalities, we developed a controlled evaluation measuring three criteria: 
1. Token efficiency — tokens consumed per completed workflow step. 
2. Reliability and error rate — frequency of malformed calls or execution failures. 
3. Coordination overhead — number of round‑trips and latency incurred by the communication method. 

This poster will present a systematic benchmark for assessing whether Code‑Mode’s theoretical advantages translate into practical gains in token efficiency and inter‑agent coordination. Both Code‑Mode and MCP are publicly documented; researchers can replicate our framework to evaluate alternative tool‑invocation strategies in their own hierarchical LLM agents.

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