Lockheed Martin to upgrade Navy submarine sonar signal processing gear

Submarine sonar experts at Lockheed Martin Corp. are upgrading digital signal processing capability aboard U.S. Navy submarines through the year 2020. Officials of the Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington have announced a $122.3 million order for engineering work involving the Acoustics-Rapid COTS Insertion (A-RCI) program's technical insertions (TI) 18 to 20. The A-RCI program seeks to improve acoustic sensing aboard U.S. fast-attack, cruise-missile, and ballistic-missile submarines without changing the sonar transducer sensors through the rapid insertion of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS)-based digital signal processing hardware. By upgrading ship sensor processing, A-RCI will integrate improve submarine towed-array, hull-array, and sphere-array sonar sensors arrays. A-RCI technology insertions describe biannual computer hardware upgrades. Periodic software upgrades are called advanced processor builds (APBs). The A-RCI program seeks to move the latest COTS digital signal processing technology into submarine signal processing systems aboard Virginia-, Seawolf-, and Los Angeles-class fast attack submarines, as well as aboard Ohio-class missile submarines on a regular basis to keep pace with commercial embedded computing developments.