Distributed Agile Submarine Hunting (DASH)
Abstract
The diesel-electric submarine is an asymmetric threat in terms of its cost and consequential growth in numbers relative to our legacy maritime platforms. In addition, these submarines have trended toward lower acoustic signature levels and have grown in lethality. The Distributed Agile Submarine Hunting (DASH) program's goal was to reverse the asymmetric advantage of this threat through the development of advanced standoff sensing from unmanned systems. Deep-ocean sonar nodes were developed to operate at significant depths in open ocean areas to achieve large fields of view to detect submarines overhead. Each deep node is the maritime equivalent of a satellite, and is referred to as a subullite. The significant field of view, along with the advantage of low-noise phenomena at extreme depths, permitted a scalable number of collaborative sensor platforms to detect and track submarines over large areas. At-sea demonstrations revealed that the detection capability has been achieved. The program developed prototype systems that evolved through additional at-sea testing. These tests demonstrated the ability to integrate into the Navy's undersea systems responsible for anti-submarine warfare (ASW). The program achieved breakthrough technology for long-range detection and classification, communications, energy management, sensor and platform integration, and robust semiautonomous processing and control for distributed sensing platforms. DASH technologies have transitioned to the Navy.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Accomplishment
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2018
- Source ID
- 198050650fb318a2c213d7d3402676b2