Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Raytheon's Fifth generation hull mounted sonar to enable anti-submarine, undersea warfare

Raytheon's Fifth generation hull mounted sonar to enable anti-submarine, undersea warfare: Raytheon was awarded a sub-contract from Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to deliver its first 5th generation medium frequency hull mounted sonar system as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Anti-Submarine Warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) program.
According to the U.S. Navy, 43 nations operate more than 600 submarines; the steady increase in undersea vessels makes tracking a challenge. Raytheon's Modular Scalable Sonar System (MS3) will integrate into SAIC's prototype trimaran vessel as the primary search and detection sonar.
The system is designed to provide search, detection, passive-threat filtering, localization and tracking capabilities without requiring human operation.
MS3 enables anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and undersea warfare with capabilities such as active and passive search, torpedo detection and alertment, and small object avoidance.