Deployable Active Passive System (DAPS)

A crucial factor in sonar design is the benefit available from increased aperture. Current sonobuoys have been constrained to an A-size configuration. Development of the ADAR sonobuoy has been a significant success in packaging and deployment of such acomplex sensor in the small A-size format. With the Deployable Active Passive System (DAPS) receiver, we propose to increase the physical aperture and add a vertical component, while maintaining as much of the ADAR design as practical. Our notional DAPSreceiver design offers significant horizontal ABF gain without the burden of long integration times needed by long horizontal apertures. Its vertical aperture offers added rejection against vertical components of the noise (including reverberation). Theincreased aperture over ADAR allows processing at lower frequencies to take advantage of improved propagation. Thus, the DAPS receiver can provide significant passive and active performance in the littoral regions of the world. During Phase I, ORINCONwill demonstrate this improved performance through simulation. Detailed questions of life, packaging, survivability, and communications of acquired information will also be addressed. For Phase II, an experimental prototype will be assembled and testedat sea. In Phase III, a DAPS advanced development prototype will be built and qualified for deployment by aircraft, surface ships, and submarines. Through the increased detection performance of DAPS, the Navy could offset reductions in the number ofavailable assets and again be able to offer undersea superiority against the modern, quiet diesel-electric or air-independent propulsion (AIP) submarine threat to our naval forces in the littoral regions of the world.