Physical Optics Corporation — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: To address the SOCOM need for an integrated system for enhancing the situational awareness

Description

To address the SOCOM need for an integrated system for enhancing the situational awareness of combat swimmers, Physical Optics Corporation (POC) proposes to develop a new Situational-Awareness Enhancing Adaptive Lightweight Head-Mounted Display (SEAL-HMD). This proposed system is based on conformal diffractive optic waveguide retrofitted into existing full facemask (FFM) visors or designed into new FFMs with complete physiological, environmental, and equipment sensor integration with dive computer processing and hybrid acoustic/RF subsurface-to-air data communication and location tracking. The innovation in see-through displays integrated into the FFM will enable true heads-up content, and compressive sampling of sensor data will enable reduced bandwidth burden on constrained acoustic links, while the direct sequence spread spectrum modulation and beamforming enable improved covert capability, signal recovery, and acoustic vector sensor-based positioning and tracking. The system will be packaged and ruggedized for field use in accordance with SOCOM operational requirements of seawater (100m), high-pressure (90psi), and wide-temperature ranges (32-95 deg F). In Phase I, POC will demonstrate the feasibility of SEAL-HMD by providing a laboratory demonstration of a FFM integrated see-through display and underwater communications and tracking. In Phase II, POC plans to mature the SEAL-HMD technology and develop designs to meet operational requirements for field use.