Environmental Adaptation for Off-Board Sensors

The DD(X) program seeks to use off-board sensors as adjuncts to a robust own-ship capability. Optimal use of these off-board sensors requires tools for providing environmentally adaptive tools to perform optimal placement and processing of these multi-static sensors. The team of Applied Hydro-Acoustics Research, Inc. (AHA) and the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Washington (APL-UW) will design and develop a comprehensive toolset to meet this challenge, the Surface-ship Environmental Adaptation and Multistatic Optimization USW Toolset (SEAMOUNT). In the first phase of the research, the AHA/APL-UW team will complete and document a comprehensive design for SEAMOUNT. The team will also perform an assessment and algorithm candidate selection for the various components of the toolset. Components include optimal placement algorithms; optimal sensor setting algorithms; environmentally adaptive tools for detection, classification and localization; tools for rapid acoustic computations; and effectiveness routines for coordinated active and passive missions. In addition to the toolset design in Phase I, the team will implement and demonstrate an initial tool in a critical area of need. That tool will be an optimal placement algorithm merging APL-UW's Particle Swarm Optimization techniques, with the Navy's approved multi-static tactical decision aid engine (ASPECT), which was developed by AHA.