Techniques for Automatically Exploiting Passive Acoustic Sonar Data

The Navy reduced manning requirements drive the need for more sonar automation. Automatically detecting and classifying targets of interest meets the challenge of reduced manning and workloads required for passive anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and torpedo detection, classification and localization (TDCL). Under SBIR Phase I Topic N06-138, the team of 3 Phoenix, Inc and General Dynamics - Advanced Information Systems developed a novel approach to automatically detect, track, and characterize targets of interest using feature extractors. Additionally the team developed and successfully demonstrated an innovative automated discriminator algorithm to discriminate between surface and submerged targets using at-sea collected data. The Phase II effort leverages the technologies developed under the Phase I and applies these automation and signal processing technologies to the Anti-Torpedo Torpedo Defense System (ATTDS). The proposed technology is comprised of a system architecture and a suite of algorithms which have the potential to provide a robust, automatic detection, classification and localization system for torpedoes. The Phase II effort will focus on finalizing and prototyping the automated data exploitation architecture based on the design concepts developed in Phase I.