SBIR-STTR Award

Undersea acoustic surveillance arrays are the Navys first line of defense in monitoring critical locations and protecting them from increasingly sophisticated adversary submarine threats. The existing methods used to design and plan seafloor sensor networks are a labor-heavy, lengthy and highly iterative process that takes up to several weeks. The Makai Ocean Engineering team (Makai) proposes to develop a software tool to model a sensor networks performance and costs based on sensor location and array configuration, sensor and connector types, and the offshore bathymetric and oceanographic environment. The proposed software, which we are calling MakaiPlan-Pd+, will leverage decades of development of the cable industrys leading submarine installation software, MakaiPlan, and the teams decades of experience with cost-estimation, acoustic probability of detection modeling, and execution of a wide range of offshore cable installations. MakaiPlan-Pd+ will use the core MakaiPlan GIS interface and tools, with the additional libraries and functions required to accurately predict the costs and probability of detection performance of the array systems in real-time. This tool will not only increase the effectiveness of sensor arrays, but decrease the time and cost to commissioning of these systems.

Benefit:
In addition to U.S. Navy other Federal subsea sensor applications, this tool could be used to optimize planning commercial seafloor infrastructure. The oil and gas industry could benefit from this tool to optimize seismic sensor deployments. In addition to sensors, this type of tool could benefit the growing subsea infrastructure market to optimize planning for communications, battery recharge stations, or other systems. This system would minimize manpower required to plan and budget installations, thus allowing for shorter time to commissioning and reduced project costs. The software can be optimized for different hardware systems depending on the application, and has the potential to become the industry standard for subsea infrastructure planning, much like Makais subsea cable modeling software has become the industry standard planning and laying submarine cables.

Keywords:
Modeling, Modeling, Network, Array, Performance, Sensor, cable, Subsea, cost

Undersea acoustic surveillance arrays are the Navys first line of defense in monitoring critical locations and protecting them from increasingly sophisticated adversary submarine threats. The existing methods used to design and plan seafloor sensor networks are a labor-heavy, lengthy and highly iterative process that takes up to several weeks. The Makai Ocean Engineering team (Makai) proposes to develop a software tool to model a sensor networks performance and costs based on sensor location and array configuration, sensor and connector types, and the offshore bathymetric and oceanographic environment. The Planning Tool will leverage decades of development of the cable industrys leading submarine installation software, MakaiPlan, and the teams decades of experience with cost-estimation, acoustic probability of detection modeling, and execution of a wide range of offshore cable installations. The Planning Tool will use the core MakaiPlan GIS interface and tools, with the additional libraries and functions required to accurately predict the costs and probability of detection performance of the array systems in real-time. This tool will not only increase the effectiveness of sensor arrays by optimizing their design and laydown for detection, install-ability and expected lifespan, but decrease the time and cost to plan these systems.

Benefit:
In addition to U.S. Navy other Federal subsea sensor applications, this tool will be used to optimize planning and design of commercial subsea telecom systems and other subsea infrastructure. In addition to sensors, this type of tool could benefit the growing subsea infrastructure market to optimize planning for communications, battery recharge stations, or other systems. This system would minimize manpower required to plan and budget installations, thus allowing for shorter time to commissioning and reduced project costs. The software can be optimized for different hardware systems depending on the application, and has the potential to become the industry standard for subsea infrastructure planning, much like Makais subsea cable modeling software has become the industry standard planning and laying submarine cables.

Keywords:
Optimal Network Planning, SUBSEA CABLE, surveillance arrays, Path Optimization