DARPA’s Distributed Agile Submarine Hunting (DASH) Program has tested two complementary submarine hunter prototype systems as part of its Phase 2 development effort. The prototypes demonstrated functional sonar, communications and mobility at deep depths. The successful tests furthered DASH’sgoals to apply advances in deep-ocean distributed sonar to help find and track quiet submarines.
The (DASH) program intends to reverse the asymmetric advantage of quiet submarine threat, through the development of advanced standoff sensing from unmanned systems.
The first prototype is the Transformational Reliable Acoustic Path System (TRAPS), developed by a team led by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).
TRAPS is a fixed passive sonar node designed to achieve large-area coverage by exploiting advantages of operating from the deep seafloor. This expendable, low-size, weight and power (SWaP) node communicated to a stationary surface node via wireless acoustic modems, with further secure RF reach back to the performer’s facilities via satellite.
The second prototype is the Submarine Hold at RisK (SHARK), an unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) developed by a team led by Applied Physical Systems (APS). SHARK intends to provide a mobile active sonar platform to track submarines after initial detections are made. APS team member Bluefin Robotics recently deployed the prototype to depth in February 2013.
A third DASH team member, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, supported the physical network layers that both teams used.
TRAPS and SHARK are scheduled to demonstrate their core sonar functionality together. Subsequent efforts may follow to realize multiple sonar nodes as well as the integration of the SHARK UUV with its sonar.
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