The US Navy is actively supporting the development and procurement of multiple unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) to shift the fleet architecture to a more distributed format. UUV systems will play a key part in future Naval fleet architectures as new threats are identified and addressed. With the Navys goal to accelerate the acquisition of large UUVs there is a clear need for new technology development to support capability enhancement of autonomous underwater systems. The proposed effort aims to establish a new pressure tolerant acoustic communication system that leverages advanced power electronics, firmware, software and novel textured ceramic piezoelectric materials to present advancements in size, weight, and power (SWAP) capability for a wide range of unwater communication applications. QorTeks overall approach is to develop a high-density, pressure tolerant, ACOMs platform that has broader capability (power, modularity, and reconfigurability) than currently available acoustic modems. The proposed approach is to establish an electronics platform that is plug-and-play compatible with differing transducers and hydrophones addressing differing frequencies, bandwidths, and data rates. QorTek plans to leverage their open-architecture Wide Bandwidth Software Defined Acoustic Modem (WBSDAM) currently in development for DARPA as a baseline architecture for this effort. This foundation allows the electronics development effort to focus on design for pressure tolerance as functional hardware been demonstrated. The Phase I will establish a preliminary design for a highly compact, highly modular, payload based on QorTeks Modular Multi-Level Direct Drive Amplifier, Digital Receiver and Software Defined Acoustic Modem architectures. The program will focus on modification of the designs to enable operation at depth without use of a pressure vessel with a goal to establish the feasibility of the approach though analytical modeling, design and early hardware demonstrations.
Benefit: The proposed effort aims to establish a new pressure tolerant and highly modular acoustic communication system that leverages advanced power electronics (GaN-based Multi-Level Switching Amplifier/High Density Power Converter), firmware, custom software and novel textured ceramic piezoelectric materials to present advancements in size, weight, and power (SWAP) capability for a wide range of unwater communication applications. Additionally, the approach aims to improve cost metrics by eliminating heavy and costly pressure vessels typically required for protection of electrical components from high hydrostatic pressures of the deep ocean environment. Furthermore, the program aims to take advantage of the benefits of textured ceramic materials for deep ocean transducer and hydrophone applications by leveraging the demonstrated improvements (+6dB TVR and up to +12dB Sensitivity) to overcome the performance changes experienced due to high isostatic pressures of the deep ocean. The QorTek/Raytheon BBN team is ideally suited to address ACOMs systems for deep communicating UUVs. Previous Raytheon BBN programs for DARPA such as Timely Information for Maritime Engagements (TIMEly) and Cross-Domain Maritime Surveillance and Targeting (CDMaST) provide cross domain communication baselines and transition opportunities for the next generation Pressure Tolerant ACOMS system proposed. The commercial Underwater ACOM market is estimated to reach $106.6M by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 12.3% over the analysis period 2020-2027. QorTek is actively developing new technologies to address this growing market segment with its own sophisticated ACOMs technology for future use in USN programs, but where the QorTek/Raytheon BBN team offers large advantages is in development of PTE that enables substantial SWAP reduction along with introduction of advanced textured based transducer and hydrophone technology.
Keywords: power electronics, power electronics, pressure tolerant electronics, hydrophone, Long Distance ACOMs, transducer, Multi-Level Direct Drive Amplifier, Textured Piezoelectric Materials, Acoustic Communication (ACOMs)
