It’s not just Noise - Innovative Tools for Acoustic Sensor Operators
Competitive Projects
Up to $1.2M in phased development funding to propel technology forward
The Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces (DND/CAF) are seeking innovative solutions to assist acoustic sensor operators to rapidly and accurately detect, classify, locate, and track underwater contacts in order to permit timely recommendations.
Results
| Project Title | Innovator | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Holographic Display for Underwater Situational Awareness of Passive Sonar | Avalon Holographics Incorporated | $229,487.00 |
| Development of FishEye acoustic data analysis toolset to enhance a sonar operator's DCLT capability | GeoSpectrum Technologies Inc. | $229,966.00 |
| 28" Multi Mode Free Flooded Ring | Ultra Electronics Maritime Systems Inc. | $229,976.00 |
| Next-Gen Environmental Sensing Buoy | Ultra Electronics Maritime Systems Inc. | $229,749.00 |
| CGIDE: aCoustic siGnal processIng with physic guiDed machine learning and data driven filtEring | THALES DIGITAL SOLUTIONS INC./THALES SOLUTIONS NUMERIQUES INC. | $229,781.00 |
| SUBTASS Array upgrade to L-R Resolving Array | Ultra Electronics Maritime Systems Inc. | $229,055.00 |
| Towed Array Shape Estimation | Ultra Electronics Maritime Systems Inc. | $228,542.00 |
| Sonobuoy Mission Pod on Small UAV for the Deployment of Sonobuoys and Creation of a Sonobuoy Field | Ultra Electronics Maritime Systems Inc. | $229,257.00 |
| Directional UHF Towed Array | Ultra Electronics Maritime Systems Inc. | $229,548.00 |
| AcousticAware - Novel Autonomous Marine Robotics and AI System for Underwater Maritime Domain Awareness | Open Ocean Robotics Inc | $199,848.00 |
Challenge: It’s not just Noise - Innovative Tools for Acoustic Sensor Operators
Challenge Statement
The Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces (DND/CAF) are seeking innovative solutions to assist acoustic sensor operators to rapidly and accurately detect, classify, locate, and track underwater contacts in order to permit timely recommendations.
Background and Context
The rapid and accurate detection of underwater objects is of critical interest to maritime platforms in sub-surface environments. While Navies have been able to maintain a high-level situational awareness in the above-water battlespace, the ability to maintain accurate underwater situational awareness poses a significant challenge. Acoustic tracking is widely used for the reason that sound can propagate over a much greater distance underwater. Given that the underwater landscape is full of sound with objects moving temporally and spatially, it can be difficult to locate and track particular sounds.
Desired Outcomes
This Challenge involves the ability to detect, classify, localize and track underwater objects from multiple sensors, in real-time, in order to support acoustic sensor operators who are often “on watch” for hours and weeks at a time. Tools and methods are sought to rapidly and accurately classify objects of interest in a water mass and support operators’ ability to make timely and effective recommendations. The DND/CAF are looking for innovative solutions that include, but are not limited to the following:
- Tools to assist human operators to rapidly detect underwater contacts from ocean data sources;
- Tools to provide localization of detected contacts to aid in decision making;
- Real-time analysis of measurements obtained from multiple sensors in order to permit the discovery of objects of interest.
- Classification of contacts by type (i.e., surface vessel, marine mammal, etc.);
Supplementary Information
It is expected that innovators will need to obtain and exploit a commercially or publically available data set in order to address the outcomes of this Challenge. A data set should be chosen that maximizes innovators’ ability to demonstrate their capabilities.
Innovators may wish to consult the following as potential sources of relevant data:
- Historic Naval Sound and Video: https://maritime.org/sound/