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 intends to reverse the asymmetric advantage of this threat through the development of advanced standoff sensing from unmanned systems. Deep ocean sonar nodes will 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 will permit a scalable number of collaborative sensor platforms to detect and track submarines over large areas. For the vast shallow continental shelf areas, the program similarly adopts distributed mobile sensors, but instead leverages insights in non-acoustic sensing from above. The effort is highly focused on achieving new detection modalities with sufficient low power, weight, and size, to enable UAV implementations. Initial efforts will focus on identifying the best detection methods leveraged from state-of-the-art sensors and new physical and operational insights. From this work, prototype systems will evolve through at-sea testing and sensor integration. The program will achieve 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. This program will transition to the Navy.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Accomplishment
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2014
- Source ID
- 239a7d27335eedc644338952e4511256