MIKEL INC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N231-048

Description

Mine countermeasure (MCM) operations employ neutralizers with a small explosive charge to engage naval mines. During the engagement, the neutralizer approaches a targeted mine and detonates its explosive charge, which can cause a sympathetic detonation or lower-order reaction in the naval mine. Battle damage assessment (BDA) to determine the outcome of the attack currently requires a follow-on mission to detect, localize, and classify sounds from the explosive event. The proposed technology will provide a capability for in-stride BDA that eliminates the need for a follow-on mission to determine the outcome of the attack. The proposed technology will be suitable for transition to the Barracuda mine neutralizer vehicle that is currently in development. It will consist of a compact, low-power processor board and signal processing algorithms integrated into a surface command and communications (C2) buoy. Algorithms to classify the outcome of the attack will include consideration of known signatures from the submerged detonation of explosives as a function of charge mass, together with the modulation and dispersion from propagation in a shallow water waveguide. Localization algorithms will operate on available cueing, timing and waveguide dispersion.  Potential applications that exploit signals observed by multiple C2 buoys will also be investigated.