The Navy must train and test to assure readiness and maintain undersea dominance. This requires the Navy to comply with federal laws protecting endangered marine mammals (MM) and thus obtain environmental permits and compliance measures (e.g. MM monitoring) to enable readiness on Navy ranges. New and enabling ocean acoustic technologies for large scale spatial and temporal monitoring of MM are needed. Passive Acoustic Monitoring (PAM) methods now exist for detecting MM vocalizations. The primary goal of this project is to develop a cost-effective autonomous UUV-based PAM system with long term endurance and a capable acoustic surveillance system for monitoring MM over large geographic areas. The autonomous system will detect the presence of specific marine mammals, classify the type and provide the location. Detection-classification messages will be exfiltrated via satellite communications to command and control stations. The Phase I effort will conduct a detailed feasibility study, trading off UUV platforms, acoustic sensor type performance, real-time autonomous processing, (all complying with extensive Minimum specifications list in the Solicitation), and the resulting optimal cost-effective system for the Phase II prototype will be developed. A build-test-build approach of the prototype will be implemented in Phase II and proof-of-concept testing will occur demonstrating all capabilities.
Benefit: Successful completion of this project will lead to the capability for robustly and autonomously detecting, tracking and classifying marine mammal life in Navy ranges and thus enable Navy readiness without harming marine life from their active sonar. Further, it will save the Navy ranges significant funds that would be spent on inefficient visual surveys and permitting processes. The technology developed herein is expected to be of interest to all DoD and DHS program offices seeking to expand investment in autonomous surveillance platforms. Further, the system aligns with the goals of the Navys Task Force Ocean to make every Navy platform a sensor for data collection. Also, the autonomous capability of the system combined with the environmental acoustic data collected will be useful for commercial applications for oceanographic and marine species research by other government agencies (eg NOAA and BOEM) and universities. OASIS knows some of these markets, having recently brought autonomous UUV surveillance systems to practice in Navy technology demonstrations. The prospects for successful commercialization of this technology are enhanced by partnership agreements OASIS has undertaken with key private sector vendors and providers of maritime technology, such as SBIR Team members Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems and ThayerMahan, Inc.
Keywords: unmanned undersea vehicles (UUV), unmanned undersea vehicles (UUV), passive acoustic monitoring (PAM), Marine Mammals, Navy Range Readiness, Autonomous Detection and Classification
