Expendable Small Object Avoidance (SOA) Sonar Detector

The objective of our Phase I research is to demonstrate that it is technologically feasible to package an active sonar with operationally useful detection capabilities in an A-sized sonobuoy canister, at a price which will permit adequate spatial coverage of a littoral region during tactical operations. Our basic system concept is a vertical array of source elements mounted orthogonal to planar receiver aperture. The vertical source aperture projects At near horizontal angles to avoid the deleterious effects of high angle reverberation. The receive array will have substantial planar aperture in order to form narrow beams to further reject reverberation and localize the target in azimuth. We have investigated geometries and configurations for autonomously deployed planar sonar arrays and have developed an approach employing dipole sensors, which allows advantageous characteristics for sonobuoy and other applications. We will exercise engineering tradeoff studies of several approaches to develop a recommended small object avoidance architecture; we are introducing this dipole sensor array as a probable prime candidate receiver for detection of small objects in turbid water. In-buoy beamforming with a highlight identifier will be used, in order to minimize data relay requirements.