SBIR-STTR Award

Low Cost Whale Detection and Monitoring with Optics
Award last edited on: 7/31/2012

Sponsored Program
SBIR
Awarding Agency
DOD : Navy
Total Award Amount
$1,149,905
Award Phase
2
Solicitation Topic Code
N07-019
Principal Investigator
Jon Schoonmaker

Company Information

Advanced Coherent Technologies LLC (AKA: Applied Coherent Technologies)

4022 Liggett Drive
San Diego, CA 92106
Location: Multiple
Congr. District: 50
County: San Diego

Phase I

Contract Number: N68335-07-C-0284
Start Date: 4/13/2007    Completed: 12/27/2008
Phase I year
2007
Phase I Amount
$149,966
Current ASW testing is often limited by the presence of marine mammals on ASW test ranges. The solicitation suggests the development of a radar system and associated algorithms to detect breaching whales in various sea states. The detection would then be handed off to an EO system for verification, classification, etc. The RADAR system must be able to discriminate the marine mammal blow or breach from open ocean breaking waves. The EO system, once queued must be able to reacquire the animal for verification and classification. This proposal suggests using an EO system that would not only be used as a verification/classification system but would also be used to detect non breaching submerged marine mammals in all sea states as well as breaching animals in high sea states. This EO system is combined with a modified COTS radar system which uses a single transmitter and two receivers. We suggest exploiting the phase difference between the two receivers to discriminate blows from open ocean breaking waves.

Keywords:
Low Cost Radar Array, Multispectral, Whale Tracking, Whale Detection

Phase II

Contract Number: N68335-08-C-0139
Start Date: 5/19/2008    Completed: 7/17/2011
Phase II year
2008
Phase II Amount
$999,939
Current ASW testing is often limited by the presence of marine mammals on ASW test ranges. The solicitation suggests the development of a radar system and associated algorithms to detect breaching whales in various sea states and generally assist in the Marine Species Mitigation (MSM) problem. The detection would then be handed off to an Electro Optical (EO) system for verification, classification, etc. The EO system, once queued must be able to reacquire the animal for verification and classification. This proposal suggests the employment of an EO system that would not only be used as a verification/classification system but would also be used to detect non breaching submerged marine mammals in low sea states as well as breaching animals in high sea states. The system will provide GPS locations and high resolution still images of all whales detected.

Keywords:
Multispectral, Marine Mammal Monitoring, Polarization, Electro-Optics