RDA INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N231-012

Description

The Navy is seeking to leverage the advances in acoustic metamaterials to reduce the power consumption and cost of electronic components in hydrophone systems. There are significant challenges involved in improving the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and post-processing requirements, with a goal of a 10 times improvement in SNR and a 1000 times reduction in post-reception and post-detection information. Modeling and simulation will be crucial in demonstrating the performance of the proposed metamaterials and the passive signal processing layer. The proposed metamaterial research and the passive signal processing system will preprocess acoustic signals using a passive structure before the signal reaches a hydrophone, reducing the computational load and therefore power consumption on the active hardware. This approach will allow for more efficient and cost-effective hydrophone systems that can reliably detect underwater targets.