Advanced Acoustic Intercept Array for Underwater Surveillance and Threat Detection

Protection of the Homeland must include the monitoring of our airspace, borders, and most importantly, shorelines. Securing our waterside assets is a difficult task that must utilize a multi-sensor surveillance system that requires a reliable underwater threat detection sensor. AAC produces for the Navy a state-of-the-art underwater acoustic sensor array that is ideal for this purpose. During Phase I, AAC will evaluate the sensor¿s performance in a noisy port environment and use this data to predict the performance of the Advanced Acoustic Intercept array being developed for the next generation Navy anti-torpedo system. Together with our signal processing software, which includes advanced classification algorithms currently in development, this system will provide the necessary detection capabilities, cost per unit length of protected asset, and low false alarm rate to be a viable threat detection tool. The commercial applications of an underwater threat detection system include protection of various industrial shoreline facilities such as power plants, oil repositories, etc. Since the array is easily deployable, this system is also applicable to in-harbor ship protection for Navy/Coast Guard ships as well as cargo ships, oil tankers, barges, and cruise ships. The system may also be of interest to the fishing industry.