END-TO-END IMAGING SONAR SYSTEM (ETE/ISS)

THE ULTIMATE OBJECTIVE OF THIS PROPOSED WORK IS TO DEVELOP AN END-TO-END IMAGING SONAR SYSTEM FOR THE STUDY AND SURVEILLANCE OF THE SEA-BOTTOM. SPECIFICALLY, THE SYSTEM IS TO EXHIBIT ADVANCED TECHNIQUES FOR SONAR SIGNAL PROCESSING TO DETECT, SIZE AND CLASSIFY MINE TARGETS. AN IMAGE SONAR PROCESSOR SOFTWARE PACKAGE WILL BE DEVELOPED. ALTHOUGH SIDE-LOOKING SONARS WILL BE INCLUDED, THE PROCESSOR WILL EMPHASIZE SYNTHETIC APERTURE SONAR APPLICATIONS. THE PROCESSOR WILL BE DESIGNED TO OPERATE IN A REAL-TIME INTERACTIVE IMAGING ENVIRONMENT AS THE PRIMARY DATA DISPLAY IN ANTICIPATION OF ITSULTIMATE USE BY NAVY AT SEA IN ACTUAL OPERATIONS. THE APPROACH PROPOSED HERE TAKES ADVANTAGE OF EXISTING LONG/SHORT RANGE, ADVANCED STATE-OF-THE-ART SONAR SENSORS. THE SPECIALIZED PROCESSING ALGORITHMS TO BE DEVELOPED WILL INCORPORATE THE LATEST RESULTS FROM THE NAVY SEA-BOTTOM ACCOUSTIC EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAMS. BY TRACING THE SIGNAL/ NOISE DEGRADATION FROM THE TRANSDUCER-TARGET-TRANSDUCER TO THE DATA ACQUISITION SYSTEMS, INCLUDING PHASE DISORTION (END-TO-END APPROACH), THE PROCESSOR WILL OPTIMIZE THE INFORMATION FOR DISPLAY TO THE FIELD OPERATOR AT THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE RESOLUTION. ULTIMATELY, THIS PROCESSOR CAN BE IMPLEMENTED ON ON-BOARD VLSI MINI-COMPUTERS PROVIDED WITH HIGH DENSITY MEMORY BUFFERS AND HIGH SPEED MICROPROCESSORS.