97 Spring 2025 Proceedings The Coast Guard hears a great deal about innovation, which is complimentary in nature. Research and devel- opment (R&D) and innovation play key roles to ensuring the future success of both private sector and govern- ment organizations. R&D and innovation position an organization to com- pete in the marketplace, mitigate threats, and/ or create organizational efficiencies for its share- holders and stakehold- ers. However, innovation cannot supplant the dis- ciplines and importance of applied research in the Coast Guard’s future. Certainly, the culture of innovation should be supported and recog- nized for the immediate improvements it can have on existing processes and empowering the work- force to innovate solu- tions to problems at the unit level, usually with available resources. An example of an innovation complement is an RDC project undertaken to help accelerate the adop- tion of robotic process automation (RPA). RPA is a rules-based technol- ogy that automates repetitive, labor-intensive tasks. The RDC demonstrated RPA’s potential with nine different bots to replace the methodical work of turning weekly, manual data pulls into reports. This has saved the Coast Guard thousands of manhours helping manage billions in funding transactions. The importance of this capabil- ity was recognized with the creation of an RPA Center of Excellence at the Coast Guard C5I Service Center (C5ISC) in Alexandria, Virginia. While innovation is valuable, its misguided to believe that it is magic and can help an organization innovate its way out of performance gaps. Real solutions come with hard work, discipline, validated requirements, the systematic search for material and nonmaterial solu- tions, and, typically, a whole-of-Coast Guard effort that engages the relevant enterprise authorities, product lines, service centers, and governing policies to success- fully transition. The RDC will always do both research and evalu- ations of commercial and/or government off-the-shelf technologies because they are often complimentary and because operators can reap immediate benefits from the rapid repurposing of available technology. Technology that can be quickly adapted for Coast Guard use is espe- cially important in the case of countering adversaries that have access to the same technology innova- tion ecosystem. St a r ted i n 2021, the RDC’s research to improve network con- nectivity for cutters oper- ating at high latitudes is another example of innovation being compli- mentary to research. The RDC worked closely with the Air Force Research Laboratory, Space Force, Coast Guard cutters including the Healy and Polar Star icebreakers, and the C5I Service Center to introduce a new sat- ellite-based technology solution called Starlink. Today, the capability is being rolled out to the fleet. In 2023, the RPA and Starlink examples were recognized as the Captain Niels P. Thomsen Innovation Award win- ner for Administration, Logistics or Support and the DHS Secretary’s Award for Innovation, respectively. What Are Some of the Coming Transformative Technologies? The Coast Guard will be impacted by many transfor- mational technologies in the next 50 years that will improve its operations, maintenance, and overall mis- sion readiness. AI and machine learning will certainly be game-changers. They will facilitate the processing of vast amounts of data collected by UxS, sensors, and other sources to provide real-time insights, predictive main- tenance, and decision-making support. For example, the generative AI technology emerging today that can exploit large language models will serve as smart assis- tants to RDC researchers. The RDC is already evaluating alpha versions provided by DoD partners. Other technologies include space-based technol- ogy, robotics, applications of exoskeletons, immersive technology, renewable energy, material advancement The Coast Guard has come a long way in search and rescue sensor technology from its very early novel research with pigeons and color conspicuity research (See Pg 37, Evaluating International Orange Alternatives). Coast Guard photo
