Radar-Based Marine Mammal Detection and Mitigation

"The overall goal of this Phase II STTR proposal is to demonstrate the capability of Naval surface and aircraft-based radars to detect and track marine mammals at representative encounter geometries. There are two major components to the proposed work: 1) acomprehensive land-based demonstration and validation experiment, using a suitable GFE radar, against humpback whales off of the coastline of Hawaii, 2) a theoretical modeling effort to assess the ability of the aforementioned radars to detect and trackgrey and right whales. If additional resources can be identified, outside of the STTR process, an off-line, prototype marine mammal detection, tracking and discrimination code will be developed.BENEFITS: The primary benefits of the proposed work, ifsucessful, will be the preservation of endangered species and the avoidance of lawsuits for the Navy and ultimately, commercial shipping fleets."