OAS proposes a brief evaluation of bistatic operational missions for the year 2000 because these will dictate bistatic system configurations and modes of use. For significiant missions, the operating scenarios and system designs will be specified in concept form and major components identified. Choices will be specified for projectors, receiving arrays, ship evolutions, and signal design and data processing techniques for bistatic configurations. Particular emphasis attaches to reverberation and interference suppression through adaptive processing methods. Operational opportunities and constraints (e.g. Sector insonification, time and frequency multiplexing of transmissions from multiple sources, clusters of orthogonal signals, etc.) will be evaluated. Signal choices adapted to particular objectives and operating modes will be specified. Use of existing receiving array assets will be assessed. Existing monostatic active sonar prediction models modified to bistatic geometries will predict target echo detectability, bottom, surface and total reverberation, signal excess, all as a function of target range, for appropriate signal choices and receiver processing techniques. Factors that limit bistatic performance will be evaluated, and their impact upon mission accomplishment assessed.
Keywords: antisubmarine warfare bistatic sonar surveillance sy asw operations bistatic asw active sonar
