About the Author

AUVSI Member Rob Simmons is a program manager in the Navy acquisition program responsible for procuring new technology for explosive ordinance disposal such as mines, IEDs, etc. Traditionally, such work has been performed, at great risk, by divers in dangerous underwater environments.

During the past ten years, Rob has played an integral role in transitioning unmanned underwater vehicles from research to fleet operators as the acquisition program manager. He has pioneered partnership arrangements between research and acquisition that are exemplary models for accomplishing this challenging task.

Rob has served as a judge at AUVSI’s International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Student Competition and his organization is a financial sponsor of that event. He is currently volunteering in Iraq as both an IED technical advisor and acquisition advisor.

In this blog, Rob shares his first-hand observations and experiences with unmanned systems being used everyday in Iraq. His perspective complements the previous coverage by Unmanned Systems magazine Editor Brett Davis in October 2007.

AUVSI invites you to use the comments section to provide your input on each entry.

This blog is an “experiment” for Rob since he has never written one before and his day to day schedule is unpredictable. He is posting whenever he finds a window of time and opportunity to get online.

AUVSI hopes this blog will serve as more than simply a home for this correspondence. It is our hope that this will provide an impetus to document lessons learned which, despite great intentions, often go unrecorded. 

This blog is a temporary feature involving a key government unmanned systems program manager on assignment in a war zone where unmanned systems are playing a big role. If you are interested in starting your own blog here, please send us an email pitching a subject of interest and your credentials as an author on that topic.

Views expressed in this blog are those of the author and are not necessarily the views of AUVSI.