Submarine Detection by Acoustic Retina Network

To address DARPA’s need to detect submarines in littoral areas using thousands of inexpensive sensors, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new Submarine Tracking by Analogous Retina Formed by Immersed Strip Housing (STARFISH) system. The central system element compresses inexpensive sensor nodes combining a Kynar acoustic transducer, thin film battery, MEMS pressure or magnetorestrictive sensor, and microprocessor, laminated in a strip of biodegradable plastic. The sensor is designed for high-volume, low-cost web production. The strips are scattered by air or sea and then establish a network by sending simple acoustic chirps to designated secondary nodes, which concentrate and preprocess the information, using neural net methodology. When a detector senses a contact or notices a chirp occlusion from its neighbors, it generates a detection chirp, which is processed by the secondary nodes. When the secondary nodes a pattern of recognized detections, the generate distinctive chirps that are detected and located by a small array of sonobuoys. In Phase I POC demonstrated the feasibility of the STARFISH system by developing separate prototype sensor hardware. In Phase II, POC will develop integrated sensors, and secondary nodes, and deploy and test the detection system in an actual littoral marine environment.