FTL LABS CORP — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: HR001119S0035-09

Description

Pressure-triggered mines are technologically simple and inexpensive to build, but represent a significant asymmetric threat to Navy assets because they are very difficult to safely disarm. The current state of practice for maritime Mine Countermeasures (MCM) involves cumbersome, expensive, and slow processes, often involving large, manned assets in the vicinity of potentially mined waters. Expendable UUV’s could enable the delivery of MCM capabilities at a closer proximity to a mine than traditional sweeping systems, potentially allowing lower power output, significant reductions in cost, and the development of sweeping modalities beyond current programs of record. However, this requires the development of UUV MCM payload systems in conformance with the size, weight, and power constraints of current UUV designs. Critically, the MCM influence sweeping modality must be deployable at a sufficiently low price point to allow one or more expendable UUVs to complete influence sweeping operations. To support the DoD technological need for marine Mine Counter-Measures (MCM), FTL Labs Corporation (FTL), with collaborators at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) have developed a novel, miniaturized technology for duplicating, or “spoofing”, the pressure signature used to trigger marine mines. There is no true ‘consumer’ need for this defense-specific technology. However, this specific technology is very much needed by the US DoD as well as in Homeland Security. Furthermore, the underlying innovation, the creation of dense microbubble plumes in liquid from a miniature, autonomous system, has wide ranging applications, which will be discussed below.