An investigation into bio-inspired sonar search performance

Abstract

The ability to detect, localize, and recognize objects on or under the seafloor is a critical capability for missions such as mine countermeasures (MCM), asset recovery, and feature-based navigation. Unmanned undersea vehicles (UUVs) have been increasingly tasked with such missions and are becoming more capable as technology develops. One intended application of developing UUV technology is to replace the dolphins that execute the mine-hunting task in the U.S. Marine Mammal Program. UUV development for MCM has moved toward larger vehicles with more powerful and multi-modal sensors, to the point where next-generation UUVs are significantly larger and have more powerful sensors than the dolphins they are intended to emulate. Dolphins rely on relatively modest sonar to detect and locate bottom and buried mines, but utilize it to great effect. In contrast to rigid UUV search instructions, dolphins employ a flexible approach with respect to both sonar characteristics and search trajectory. In this work, the ef...