Research Summaries

Back Autonomous Wide Aperture Cluster for Surveillance (AWACS)

Fiscal Year 2009
Division Graduate School of Engineering & Applied Science
Department Oceanography
Investigator(s) Joseph, John E.
Sponsor Office of Naval Research (Navy)
Summary Seapower 21, the Chief of Naval Operation's vision for the 21 SI Century Navy, emphasizes antisubmarine warfare (ASW) as a high priority Naval capability. This represents a shift in priority and requires the calculus of ASW to be significantly changed from the present platform-based approach, using submarines and surface ships, to a distributed, networked force utilizing rapid detect-to-engage capabilities. At issue is the surveillance of very quiet diesel-electric (DE) submarines operating electrically in the littoral shallow waters (SW) in and around strategic ports. The SW environment is very noisy due to local shipping and its sound propagation is highly variable in both time and space. Consequently, the performance of current ASW assets with passive sonar systems is unacceptable. The tactical ranges required for efficient operation specify a signal-to-noise ratio that is presently unobtainable. Furthermore, the present number of false alarms from local ships prohibits effective fire control solutions. Thus, the detection, classification and localization (DCL) of DE submarines requires a new concept-of operation based on new systems and technologies.
Keywords
Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal