Automated Ship Active Sonar Mutual Interference Planning

Changing geopolitical situations add complexity to the ASW task faced by the Navy. Capable submarines are employed by potential adversaries located in difficult acoustic conditions. ASW is turning to active sonar systems to meet the requirements against these targets. Often, multiple active sonars are used in close proximity. There is a need to plan coordinated search efforts that optimize the overall search performance and minimize the negative effects of active sonar mutual interference (MI). The Navy requires an active sonar mutual interference planning tool embedded in existing fleet tactical decision aids. ORINCON is uniquely qualified to develop this system as a result of work currently being done for ARPA's Advanced Undersea Warfare Decision Support Systems (DSS) and ORINCON's extensive knowledge of active systems developed in the Low Frequency Active (LFA) signal processing work for SPARWAR. ORINCON's Strategy for Resource Allocation Through Acoustic, Geographic, and Environmental Metareasoning (STRATAGEM) system will perform acoustic performance diagnostics and provide optimization guidance. Our signal processing knowledge will account for the effects of transmissions from other sources on sonar processing. This innovative method of optimizing search planning while accounting for active MI will provide the search planning capability required. ORINCON has formed an alignment with Hughes Aircraft for development and transition. An optional capabilitiy is to include planning for ping stealing.