Project Artemis—A retrospective view

Abstract

Approximately 45 years ago, the Underwater Acoustics Community of the U.S. undertook a massive research program called Project Artemis. The objective of this endeavor was to determine what were the necessary capabilities needed to build an active mono-static sonar that was capable of detecting a submerged submarine at ranges of about 1000 km. Although no operational capability ever resulted from this effort, the research undertaken by this project identified the limitations in existing technology and in the community’s knowledge of underwater water acoustics that precluded achievement of the original objective. In the area of technology, the most obvious limitation was the limited speed of available computers that forced the use of cumbersome analog devices for signal processing and for beam steering. Techniques for controlling the location of the source dynamically and for the construction and for the operation of large-scale acoustic high-powered phased arrays were developed successfully. Unresolved issues that formed the basis for future research efforts related to signal coherence time, low-frequency acoustic cross sections of submarines, the development of reliable computation models for propagation loss, low-frequency acoustic absorption processes in ocean, and the development of algorithms that accounted for source Doppler. Project Artemis terminated in the mid-1960s.