DARPA taps three companies to develop low-power, non-acoustic ASW technologies for UAVs
ARLINGTON, Va., 15 Jan. 2012.Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) experts in the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in Arlington, Va., have awarded their third industry contract for a program that seeks to develop technologies to help detect enemy submarines in shallow coastal waters and harbors without using traditional acoustic submarine-hunting technologies like sonar.
The DARPA Strategic Technology Office on Friday awarded Cortana Corp. in Falls Church, Va., a $496,500 contract for the Shallow Water Agile Submarine Hunting (SWASH) program, which seeks to develop small, lightweight, low power non-acoustic ASW surveillance and cued search capability for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
For the SWASH research program DARPA also awarded a $249,735.48 to SRC Inc. in North Syracuse, N.Y., last October, and a $367,507 contract last September to Applied Physical Sciences Corp. in Groton, Conn. Cued search capability refers to a way of looking for submerged submarines using data from separate or remote sensors.
The companies will try to develop advanced ASW surveillance capability, which does not use traditional acoustics or sonar, for UAVs operating over shallow-water coastal areas and harbors.
DARPA scientists are asking experts from Cortana, SRC, and Applied Physical Sciences to concentrate small, lightweight, low power ASW sensing approaches for UAVs.
For more information contact Cortana Corp. online at www.cortana.com, SRC at www.syrres.com, Applied Physical Sciences at http://aphysci.com.
John Keller | Editor
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
