Compact Magnetic Detection Set (CMDS) for Air Antisubmarine Warfare (ASW) and Land-Based Use

This SBIR Phase I proposal describes the development of a conceptual design for a Compact Magnetic Detection Set (CMDS) for air ASW. The CMDS laser magnetometer is an innovative light-weight, compact, low-power, high-sensitivity instrument capable of measuring scalar DC and ELF magnetic fields with sensitivity better than 0.3 pT/ãHz in the frequency interval 0.01-100 Hz. A design goal of the CMDS is to reduce the system volume, weight and power by a factor of two with respect to DT-704/ASQ-233 system parameters. The CMDS is intended for use on UAVs (vertical take-off and fixed wing) employed for shallow water ASW and land-based target detection such as buried weapons caches and IEDs. An approach to reduce system size and weight is the use of Optically-driven Spin Precession (OSP) instead of conventional Magnetically-driven Spin Precession (MSP) to induce and observe magnetic resonance in the helium cell. OSP technology is attractive for a compact system because it eliminates the need for resonance drive coils and reduces the number of cells required for omni-directional operation. An OSP single-cell digital locked-oscillator scalar magnetometer was demonstrated for the first time under a recent NASA Phase I Project. The Phase I effort will include developing the CMDS specifications that will achieve the size, weight, power and performance requirements, and evaluating the applicability of CMDS to small UAV/VTUAVs and manned ASW platforms. The Phase II effort will involve fabrication of a CMDS laboratory breadboard based on the Phase I design.