The Naval Postgraduate School Ocean Acoustic Observatory: Past experiences and current proposition.

Abstract

The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) Ocean Acoustic Observatory (OAO) utilized a cabled hydrophone array of the decommissioned Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS) Naval Facility at Point Sur, CA. Established in 1993, the NPS OAO became the prototype dual‐use IUSS facility to release data to the education and research communities. The cable severed in January 2001 and was deemed unrepairable during a 2004 attempt. In this paper, scientific results from several of the research activities between 1993 and 2000 are presented. Some of these research projects were conducted in partnership with external academic institutions and some conducted solely by NPS investigators. Past research activities include signal propagation studies, acoustical thermometry and tomography, and ambient sound and whale monitoring. Since 2006, suboptimal monitoring efforts have continued using duty‐cycled recordings from a moored hydrophone, lacking real‐time access and continuity. Finally, a proposal to replace the existing terminal equipment building and install a new high‐bandwidth cable terminating with an undersea distributed node seaward to enable emerging multifaceted, multidiscipline naval and academic research, developments, and applications is described. With strong endorsements by the NPS Dean of Research and Undersea Warfare Chair, among others, this dual‐use plan has been submitted as a Military Construction project.