Continuous Acoustic Sensing With an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle System for Anti-Submarine Warfare in a High-Threat Area.

摘要

An unmanned aerial vehicle system called the Aqua-Quad, an ultra-long-endurance hybrid design, developed by researchers in the NPS Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, is utilized in this thesis. The Aqua-Quad has the capability of landing on the ocean surface and deploying passive acoustic sensors at depth. We investigated the employment of the Aqua-Quad in a general environment, determined sea-state survivability, and verified, using a self-contained acoustic sensor, that the Aqua-Quad can be utilized in undersea warfare. The experiments and data collected on the initial setup of the Aqua-Quad are compared against the Navy s current asset, passive sonobuoys. These comparisons will prove to be influential in the process of building, researching, and developing a new and improved sensor asset with unlimited potential to strive in multiple warfare areas. This research benefits not only the Navy, through enhancement of offensive warfighting by testing the next generation of sonobuoys, but also the oceanographic community with fast sampling and detection.