Environmental Wideband Acoustic Receiver and Source (EWARS)

The objective of this solicitation is to develop and demonstrate an innovative air-deployable source and receiver combination that is capable of characterizing the acoustic ocean environment over a wide range of frequencies from Navy Maritime Patrol and Reconnaissance Aircraft with the capability of crossing multiple operational environments. The ability to detect threats in the ocean in a high ambient noise and changing environment requires a significant amount of knowledge about the ocean environment. Since these parameters are very location dependent, a decided advantage is gained when the ocean is characterized for pre-mission planning. The proposed calibrated source / receive sonobuoy fills a void and has the capability to characterize the ocean by measuring transmission loss, ambient noise, effects of surface and bottom scattering, and provide the data to overhead or at-sea assets via a NATO radio. This environmental information will make ship sonar, production sonobuoys or other sonar systems more effective.