ARLINGTON, Va. – U.S. Navy researchers will brief industry next month on a new project to revolutionize long-range anti-submarine warfare (ASW) in deep-water environments.
Officials of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in Arlington, Va., issued an announcement on Friday (N00014-20-S-SN02) for the Affordable Mobile ASW Surveillance System (AMASS) project. Industry briefings will be 11 March 2020 at ONR headquarters in Arlington, Va.
AMASS will develop and demonstrate a persistent deep-water active ASW system that can detect new kinds of quiet enemy submarines at long ranges. This will include active and passive sonar, automatic deployment, station keeping, and longevity.
Passive sonar simply involves listening for enemy submarines. Active sonar uses a transducer to produce a sound, or "ping," that bounces off enemy submarines for detection and to determine range and bearing.
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Navy researchers expect AMASS technology to expand on established Fixed Surveillance Systems (FSS) and Mobile Surveillance Systems (MSS) to provide flexible and responsive wide-area surveillance to theater ASW commanders worldwide.
Of particular interest are deep-water passive and active ASW sonar, as well as mobile passive and active sonar. Expected technological challenges include concept of system deployment from a shipping container; automatic deployment of large aperture sonar arrays from a buoy; persistent presence of a buoy by keeping it powered for a long time and within one location; ways to minimize sonar array deformation; and affordable costs.
Industry experts who wish to attend the invitation-only classified-secret AMASS briefings should email two-page requests no later than 5 p.m. eastern time on 26 Feb. 2020 to the Navy's Dave Johnson at [email protected].
Related: New era dawns in ASW as manned and unmanned submarines team for bistatic sonar
Companies also should email white papers to Dave Johnson at the same address no later than 2 April 2020. Companies submitting promising white papers will be asked to submit formal proposals by 15 May 2020. The AMASS project may last as long as three years.
Email technical questions or concerns to Dave Johnson at [email protected]. Email business questions to Dunia Hickey at [email protected].
More information is online at https://beta.sam.gov/opp/ec4a778d21084349b8e4a2872ed385e5/view.
