SBIR-STTR Award

Fishing gear continues to become entangled in underwater towed array surveillance equipment causing a variety of damage to the arrays and towing equipment. Adaptive Methods proposes two solutions which should significantly reduce this damage, fishing gear deflection and fishing gear penetration (cutting). The fishing gear deflection concept consists of a bar or bars attached to the tow/leader cable which will deflect the fishing gear down and away from the areas on the towing equipment where nets or other fishing gear become entangled. The deflection bars will have a hard outer surface to resist penetration by hooks and other sharp objects. This concept is low cost and will have a minimum impact to the array system. The fishing gear penetration concept consists of a long bar with powered cutting teeth designed to cut through fishing gear allowing the arrays to pass through without damage. Upon detection of fishing gear, the system would automatically activate, cut through the gear and shut off. This concept is more sophisticated, and would require more modifications to the array system but would probably better protect the array system. These concepts would be safe for the back deck crew and would not interfere with the array performance.

Benefit:


Benefits:
The SURTASS TL-29 towed array system sustains damage from various types of fishing gear. In this proposed work effort, Adaptive Methods will design mitigation devices which will reduce this damage by preventing the fishing gear from contacting the towing system and arrays. These devices will increase mission time and reduce operating costs. Commercialization: The proposed fishing gear mitigation devices can be used in a variety of applications including submarine surveillance, oil and gas exploration and marine geology. The primary market will be the US Navy for the SURTASS towed array system. The secondary market consists of seismic survey acoustic systems principally used for ocean oil and gas exploration.

Keywords:
entanglement, entanglement, array damage, Net penetration, mitigation, net deflection

Fishing gear continues to become entangled in SURTASS underwater towed array surveillance equipment causing a variety of damage to the arrays and towing equipment. Because of this, the SURTASS Program Executive Office has sought solutions to these entanglements in SBIR solicitation N102-155. In their Phase I proposal Adaptive Methods proposed methods for fishing gear deconfliction to improve the overall operational availability of the system, and won a Phase I award for development. This was successful and a Phase II proposal was requested. In Phase II Adaptive Methods proposes to develop EDM and PPD equipment for fishing gear deconfliction, building on work performed in Phase I. This equipment will be tested and demonstrated for the Navy in the Phase II Basic work period. In the Phase II Option Adaptive Methods will make final design revisions, develop documentation, conduct design reviews, and prepare for production.

Benefit:
Benefits The proposed technology will mitigate towed array entanglements with fishing gear, thus increasing SURTASS operational availability and reducing repair and replacement costs. Commercialization Successful commercialization of Adaptive Methods fishing gear de-confliction technology requires identification of a legitimate market and development of a product whose capability and production cost satisfy market needs. The market for a towed array design components is the US Navy, commercial seismic surveyors, and other ocean research systems utilizing towed sensors. The key to marketability in all of these communities is the development of products that can efficiently integrate into existing systems without the need for extensive re-design of engineering baselines. To satisfy these criteria for mobile surveillance programs, we plan to develop prototypes for the surveillance towed array sensor (SURTASS) that will work effectively with the existing TL-R and TL-29 arrays and existing tow-system components, and T-AGOS Swath deployment & retrieval systems with no special hardware.

Keywords:
net deflection, mitigation, array damage, Net penetration, entanglement