Development of Explosive Non-Acoustic Sensing on Remotely Operated Vehicles for Littoral Threat Characterization in Complex Seabed Environments

White River Technologies proposes this effort involving non-acoustic sensing methods and sensor fusion technologies to detect and characterize man-made objects of interest in littoral environments relevant to expeditionary mine warfare and unexploded ordnance remediation. Current and evolving threats to maritime dominance require the Navy to adapt to potential hazards from a variety of sources, which could include terrorism, and to operate in increasingly difficult environments. Objects of interest may be hidden or obscured by seabed features such as vegetation, corals, rocks, biologics, man-made debris, and scouring/burial. Our concept will provide an improved capability to localize and classify objects of interest in complex seabed conditions that currently pose a challenge to successful identification of objects using solely acoustic or optical methods. Our concept is based on multi-axis/multi-sensor methods deployed from unmanned systems such as small inspection-class remotely or autonomously operated vehicles to provide the advanced classification and target identification capability to fill these gaps. Our multi-sensor approach will significantly improve target classification, identification and localization, and provide effective clutter rejection capability. Project tasks include assessment of multi-axis transmitter and receiver configurations, modification of existing characterization algorithms, and sensing system integration with an inspection-class ROV.