Rydal Research proposes to research and demonstrate the feasibility of developing a low cost high-performance data network that will support the size and speed requirements of the next generation of large hull-mounted acoustic arrays. The network will be based on a number of novel low cost high-speed electrical and optical networking components and an efficient low-latency open protocol standard. The network will provide data rates in the 10 Gb/s range with latencies in the range of a few hundred nanoseconds. The network will also be used to implement a high performance real-time distributed processing system. Feasibility will be demonstrated by modeling and simulation and demonstration of small network prototype in Phase I. Benefits The development of this technology will benefit the Navy in a number of ways. It will dramatically reduce the cost and improve the performance, reliability, and insertion time of large acoustic arrays. The processing system based on these components will provide more than an order of magnitude improvement in processing throughput. Since the same protocol will be used for both data distribution and processing, the resulting flat architecture and simplified programming model will further contribute to lower cost. Finally, the development of low-cost components enabling economical high-performance computing and signal processing will spur commercial and academic research and development in operating systems, algorithms, and software development tools based on them. This research and development will further reduce the cost and improve performance of future Navy systems. Keywords Low-cost electronics, Large acoustic arrays, High-performance networks, RapidIO, High-speed VCSELs, Low-latency networks
