Automated Mine Neutralization Vehicle

Recent advances have been made in searching for and locating volume and proud mines in shallow and very shallow water. The procedure for neutralizing mines is still labor intensive, slow, expensive and dangerous. In this SBIR, OASIS and Lockheed Martin-Sippican (LMS) address the need for a ship, air or submarine launched unmanned vehicle to provide automated mine neutralization. The proposed Expendable Mine Automated Neutralizer (EMAN) vehicle will be a variant of the LMS production EMATT (Expendable Mobile Acoustic Training Target). Following the detection and localization by the reconnaissance UUV, an acoustic marker beacon will be placed in the vicinity of the mine and will have precise relative positions between the marker and the target. The EMAN's task is to transit to the beacon location, then transit to the position of the mine and await detonation instructions. The technical challenge to be addressed is the detection of the beacon signal in a noisy, bottom limited, very shallow water and dynamically complex environment, and then to transit to the beacon and the mine. With minor variants to the EMATT in hardware (adding hydrophones) and software, the EMAN system can be in production within the specified cost goals in the NEAR TERM.