NEWPORT, R.I. – U.S. Navy undersea warfare experts needed active sonar components to help submarines and surface warships detect and track enemy submarines, unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) and other submerged targets. They found their solution from SyQwest Inc. in Cranston, R.I.
Officials of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division Newport in Newport, R.I., announced an $18.6 million contract to SyQwest last week for transducer projectors and spare parts.
A transducer projector is part of an active sonar system, which consists of the projector transducers, and receiver arrays. This is what produces the "ping" sound of an active sonar system that bounces sound waves off the hulls of undersea targets.
The transducer projector is an underwater speaker, which includes a signal generator, power amplifier, and electro-acoustic transducer array.
SyQwest produces the TR 330D sonar transducer for active sonar aboard submarines that uses a mid-frequency operating band. The company also produces the TR 341 submarine distress beacon; DT-100 submarine under-ice navigation and obstacle avoidance hydrophone array; DT-276 submarine flank array hydrophone; the TR-233 high-frequency submarine underwater communication transducer; and the Next Generation Gertrude (NGG) underwater communication electronics.
Three months ago SyQwest won a $16.6 million Navy contract to build the first NGG underwater communication device to replace the Navy’s AN/WQC-2A underwater communications system on new-construction surface ships, as well as for back-fits to Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and future Constellation-class frigates.
In 2022 SyQwest won a $10 million contract to build TR-343 sonar transducer ceramic stack assemblies for the Navy Submarine Acoustic Systems Program Office at the Pentagon. The TR-343 transducer is part of the AN/SQS-53C hull mounted sonar array subsystem.
On this contract SyQwest will do the work in Cranston, R.I., and should be finished by August 2028. For more information contact SyQwest online at www.syqwestinc.com/index.htm, or the Naval Undersea Warfare Center-Newport at www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Warfare-Centers/NUWC-Newport.
