Direct-to-Phase II F2-WARS Sonobuoy

The current capabilities of mid-frequency transmitter/receiver acoustic sensors do not provide calibrated coherent source/receiver combinations tailored for environmental characterization or advanced passive processing. The Navy requires innovative sensor technologies with enhanced electromechanical property ceramics that fill frequency, bandwidth, and responsiveness gaps for the transmitter and receiver elements that are capable of transmitting, collecting, and processingsurveillance information. Enhanced signal processing techniques for both active and passive processing can enable improvements in capabilities at the F2 Mid Frequency.SLA will develop and demonstrate an F2-WARS sonobuoy prototype. It will take the form of a source and receiver combination prototype system that can characterize the acoustic ocean environment in the F2 Mid-Frequency range and will build upon previous successful designs.The system will consist of an acoustic projector array, acoustic receive array, a lower unit, and a surface unit. The lower unit will provide battery power and a power amplifier for powering the projector array. It also collects and aggregates data from the receive array to send to the surface unit. The surface unit will accept commands from and transmit data to the sonobuoy receiver radio and the acoustic processor platform over an RF link per the NATO STANAG 4718 standard.The design will build upon the DDVLA sonobuoy that SLA has developed and tested. It is now in Phase III low-rate initial production. DDVLA is a receive-only sonobuoy that operates at the F7 frequency. The DDVLA receive elements will be leveraged for this Phase II prototype program. They will be modified for the F2 frequency, but their low-noise performance, high-resolution data acquisition, and signal processing algorithms will transfer to this program. The DDVLA surface unit with a NATO STANAG 4718 compliant radio will be used as-is for this Phase II prototype.