WIC Workshop 2020

Resurrecting War Plan Blue

This CRUSER sponsored Warfare Innovation Continuum (WIC) Workshop is scheduled for 21-24 September 2020 as a Naval Postgraduate School Thesis & Research Week activity to apply emerging technologies to shape the way we fight. This annual workshop facilitates teams of junior officers and early career engineers through rapid concept generation using tools of design to innovate novel autonomous unmanned systems concepts to support and enhance logistics in contested environments.

Apply for a spot on a Concept Generation Team, register as an Observer, or offer your services as a Mentor.

Rapid Concept Generation Workshop: Given the design challenge “How might emerging technologies support logistics in contested environments?” small teams of junior officers from NPS and the fleet, and early career engineers from Navy labs, academia and industry will generate technology and employment concepts in scenario based discussions.  

Participants are provided new technologies and possible future capabilities, then facilitators guide the teams through a design process to generate concepts of employment and risk assessments within a future conflict scenario.  Teams brief their best three or four concepts to sponsors, industry executives, and senior officers on the final morning of the workshop.  Results are further disseminated to technical community of interest members, fleet commands, and OPNAV staff. Selected concepts become part of CRUSER’s Innovation Threads, and members of the unmanned and autonomy community of interest are invited to further develop these concepts through prototyping and testing.  A final report detailing process and outcomes of selected projects is released before the end of each calendar year.