Wideband High-frequency Aquatic Life Echolocation System, Deployable

Studies have shown that marine mammals can be adversely affected by high-power underwater acoustic signals, such as those transmitted by the Navy’s high-power, low-frequency sonar systems. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) provides authorizations for the Navy’s use of these systems for testing and training as long as certain mitigation measures are implemented. The Navy’s Deep Water Active (DWA) Deployable Surveillance System (DSS) requires a marine mammal mitigation solution to allow use of its low-frequency active sonar. In-Depth Engineering, teamed with Marine Acoustics, Inc. and QorTek, Inc. proposes the Wideband High-frequency Aquatic Life Echolocation System (WHALES), Deployable (WHALES-D) solution. WHALES-D will consist of: (1) a small broadband passive acoustic receiver coupled with Cortical Processing – a novel automated signal classification capability based on a model of mammalian hearing; (2) a high-frequency, compact active transmitter for detection of non-vocalizing marine mammals and for providing unambiguous range measurements when needed; (3) compact, low-power wet-end electronics for passive receiver front-end processing and active transmitter signal amplifiers and power storage; and (4) compact, low-power processing hardware that hosts passive and active sonar signal processing software and communicates with the DWA system to provide alerts that should halt active transmissions.