Responsibility for the implementation, administration, and management of the Department of the Navy (DoN) SBIR Program is with the Office of Naval Research (ONR).  The Acting Director of the DoN SBIR Program is Mr. Robert Smith, [email protected].  For program and administrative questions, please contact the Program Managers listed in Table 1; do not contact them for technical questions.  For technical questions about the topic, contact the Topic Authors listed for each topic during the period 12 December 2014 through 14 January 2015.  Beginning 15 January 2015, the SBIR/STTR Interactive Technical Information System (SITIS) (www.dodsbir.net/Sitis) listed in Section 4.15.d of the DoD SBIR Program Solicitation must be used for any technical inquiry.

AUV/UUV Topics of interest

N151-011    Compact Deep Vector Sensor Array

DESCRIPTION: Arrays of vector velocity sensors provide major system gains over legacy arrays of omnidirectional hydrophones in bottom moored configurations. For example, gains against ambient noise can be realized, the left-right ambiguity can be eliminated, and sensitivity nulls can be steered towards an interfering source making much quieter targets detectable. Deploying such acoustic sensing systems for use at extremely deep depths close to or on the ocean bottom (below critical depth) in convergent zone type environments has garnered recent interest in the Navy [1-3]. The advent of highly sensitive, compact directional sensors made possible by new transducer materials is a key enabler for this performance enhancement [2]. Recent investigation of the ambient noise structure in the deep ocean [3] suggests that a passive directional sonobuoy system covering the band from 5 to 500 hertz (Hz) would be of interest.

N151-033    Using Environmental Information in State Estimation for Undersea Systems

DESCRIPTION: A submarine is vitally dependent on its acoustic sensors during periods of total submersion.  Because of this, collecting, associating, and assimilating acoustic data to generate the tactical and operational picture depends greatly on the effects of the acoustic environment.  While acoustic tactical decision aids have been available and in use for years, currently limited research and development is available to reliably exploit environmental information in an automated manner to improve contact range and velocity estimation processes. This topic will pursue more fully automated signal and information processing techniques to leverage environmental knowledge such as propagation paths, boundary interactions, and other physical phenomenon to aid in target localization and state estimation using acoustic sensors.

N151-043    Undersea Vehicle Navigation

DESCRIPTION: The Department of the Navy (DoN) is developing an undersea burial vehicle that crawls at approximately 0.5-knots along the ocean bottom burying ¼ to ½-inch (in) diameter cable up to 1-kilometer (km) long.  An inexpensive navigational system is necessary to provide accurate location inputs to the vehicle controls system.  Desired accuracy is plus or minus (±) 6-in along a notional 1-km track.  Current navigational systems for undersea vehicles have the potential to provide this degree of accuracy but are prohibitively expensive for the targeted DoN system that is a one-time use, expendable burial vehicle.
 
The objective is to produce a small, low power, short operational life, highly accurate inertial navigation system for under $5K production cost.  Current high accuracy systems integrate multiple sensors and systems such as Inertial Navigation System (INS) (References 1 and 2), Doppler Velocity Log (DVL) (Reference 3), and Global Positioning System (GPS) (Reference 4) to achieve high accuracy standards (References 1 and 2).  GPS does not work through sea water.  Optical systems require image matching, which is not available.

N151-050    Wideband Acoustic Signature Capability for Next Generation Mobile Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Training Target

DESCRIPTION: Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) training is significantly more effective when air, surface, and sub-surface platforms and their ASW sonar crews train in the operational environment in which they would locate enemy submarines.  Training against live submarines is costly and most often not available.  Mobile ASW training targets fill this critical training need.  Naval forces need to be trained with new and sophisticated technologies that simulate real world conditions and scenarios to effectively counter future undersea threats.  A next generation small diameter mobile ASW Training Target which emulates realistic threat signatures is in the development stage.  It must encompass low cost, a relatively small size, maximum achievable bandwidth and source level.  The transducer suite is the most significant challenge in developing this target.  As transducer size decreases, particularly the diameter, it becomes considerably more difficult to achieve the bandwidth and source levels required to emulate such signatures.  The goal of this SBIR is to achieve large bandwidth and source level via unique, innovative designs incorporating a small size transducer.

External link: http://www.acq.osd.mil/osbp/sbir/solicitations/sbir20151/index.shtml