Advanced Signal Processing and Display Concepts for Airborne Active ASW Systems

Environmental robustness is a significant challenge facing the extension of the Airborne ASW search mission to littoral environments. As ASW systems are used increasingly in littoral waters, environmentally adaptive signal processing, classification, and display techniques are required if the systems are to be effective in diverse sonar conditions. The Navy has undertaken a number of active classification projects which have not proven to be environmentally robust. When the classifiers are exposed to a new and unknown environment, they suffer a drastic performance reduction. The human operator is more adept than any current automatic active classifier at adjusting to the environmental variability, and should remain central to the classification process. The solution proposed here will provide comprehensible information to the operator without overwhelming him with useless data.