ARETE ASSOCIATES — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N201-028

Description

The Areté Surf Zone Optical Imaging System (SZOIS) will support the needs of the United States Navy (USN) and the Coastal Battlefield Reconnaissance and Analysis (COBRA) program to perform optical imaging through the air-water interface in the Very Shallow Water (VSW) and Surf Zone (SZ) environments. The Arete SZOIS will detect surface and subsurface mines from small surface ships and/or airborne platforms in dynamic environments of waves, ocean turbulence, white caps, and foam. Current technical approaches are unable to avoid the effects of the ocean surface on target imagery or have limited nighttime capabilities. As a figure of merit, this program will use COBRA Block II SZ specifications, for example area search rate of twenty km2 / hour and Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) available on the Fire Scout MQ-8C platform including the current COBRA system. In addition to adding day/night capability in the SZ and VSW, the proposed solution will mitigate time varying surface effects by utilizing a combination of hardware and Digital Signal Processing (DSP) technologies, which will significantly improve mission effectiveness in these very complex environments.  Under the Phase II Base and Options, Areté will support a Design Review, develop a technical prototype comprised of hardware and software DSP solutions identified under the Phase I, and perform a data collection/demonstration of the prototype system in representative environments. The results of successful Phase I and Phase II program will produce a capability that that can be transitioned to the COBRA systems, as well as a potential upgrade to other existing optical airborne mine detection platforms and surface ships.