Light Weight Array Technologies

Introduction

Under this research programme new towed array technologies suitable for operation from Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV) and Un-manned Surface Vehicles (USV) are proposed to be developed. Such a system would aid multiple AUVs and USVs in many underwater surveillance and Imaging applications. Two technologies are being explored

1) Arrays employing ceramic hydrophone based sensing technology

2) Arrays based on fiber laser sensor based hydrophones

Apart from shear engineering challenges in realising such a small array configuration, there are many technical and scientific questions that remains to be answered in order to understand the performance envelope and usability of the system for underwater applications. Our research efforts are towards characterising the array performance against many interfering noises such as electronic noise, flow noise and vibration.

Digital Thin Line Array (DTLA)

ARL has developed a small diameter towed array measuring just 10.5mm in external diameter and about 30 m long with a tow lead of 20 m. The array consists of 11 acoustic sensors, one electronic compass and a pressure sensor. The array has been towed behind an AUV and some of the findings from this exercise has been published in the Oceans 2007 Conference held at Vancouver.

• photograph of DTLA: