Maritime Surveillance Systems (PMS 485) Technology Review

The Program Executive Office, Littoral and Mine Warfare (PEO LMW), MaritimeSurveillance Systems (MSS), Program Manager Ships 485 (PMS 485) requires continuous updates of technology and new concepts to support its mission to provide undersea surveillance systems to the Fleet. Systems are comprised of fixed systems, mobile systems such as Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS), and distributed sensing systems. To facilitate efficient information exchange, PMS 485 has established a program to periodically review technologies and ideas from industry, government labs, universities, and knowledgeable individuals during scheduled 2-day periods on a quarterly basis. PMS 485 has established Technical Tracks that are aligned to the key segments of its system functional architecture. The Tracks and general areas of interest in each are: Sensors: New active, passive, bi-static, multi-static, acoustic, non-acoustic, fixed, towed, linear, vertical, all fiber or hybrids, vector, or volumetric sensors to detect undersea targets. Ocean Operations: Methods and apparatus for deployment and /or maintenance of sensors of various types from various undersea or surface platforms. Undersea networks and telemetry: Methods and enabling components, protocols, software, power supplies, gateways, branching units, fiber or acoustic, laser, light emitting diode communications to facilitate undersea wideband communication sensor/data networks. Processing: Signal Conditioning: Methods and enabling components to prepare raw sensor data for transmission, filtering, beam-forming, compression, comparison, fusion, cueing of other sensors, including programming and computing advances to reduce coding time. Sensor Data Processing: Methods and enabling components to process prepared sensor data for display and visualization, including super-computing applied to acoustic domain data, parallel processing, pipelining, multi-threading, striping, virtualization, Input / Output (IO) maximization, automation algorithms, bell-ringers. Storage, Retrieval and Content Management: Methods for storing, retrieving, tagging, posting, sharing, managing, and archiving acoustic, contact, track and amplifying information supporting networked nodes in a classified service oriented architecture (SOA) for local or web enabled access. Display and Visualization: Methods and components for displaying and visualizing data that will enhance the operators ability to discern contact information from the presented acoustic and/or fused data, operator workload reduction. Communications/Data Exfiltration: Methods and enabling technology to exfiltrate various data types from the sensing/processing node to other critical elements either within a node or externally to a remote node, including compression and error correction coding, advanced Low Probability of Intercept / Low Probability of Detection (LPI/LPD) approaches and methods for bridging the acoustic to Radio Frequency (RF) transmission path. Command and Control: Tactical decision aids, data fusion, environmental prediction, sensor planning, Undersea Warfare - Decision Support System (USW-DSS) segments of interest to MSS, Command and Control (C2) of underwater unmanned vehicle (UUV) remote operations. Schedule and Location: The first scheduled session are planned for October 21-22 in San Diego, CA, at the offices of Northrop Grumman Corporation in San Diego, CA 92108. Submission Content/Selection: Interested parties shall submit a one page UNCLASSIFIED White Paper on the topic desired to be briefed NLT 1600, 28 September, 2008 on the Space and Naval Warfare Commands (SPAWAR) E-commerce site; https://e-commerce.spawar.navy.mil/ under SPAWAR Headquarters, Special Notices under Maritime Surveillance Systems (PMS 485) Technology Review. Papers should include: Name of business entity/individual, presenter, classification, desired functional segment, contact information and a short explanation of the technology or concept and proposed fit. The PMS 485 Technical Director will select White Papers for presentation based on whether (1) they are within the mission of PMS 485 described in the synopsis above, (2) they are within the scope of the Technical Tracks described in the synopsis above, and (3) a Technical Readiness Level (TRL) of 7 could be achieved in the next 3 year period. In cases of conflict or insufficient track time slots, the White Papers selected for presentation will be accepted in the order received. Each presenter will be allocated 45 minutes to include a question and answer period. Initially, a company may present in no more than 2 track sessions per quarter. Complete details of the presentation process will be provided with the notification that a White Paper has been selected for presentation. Note that presentations selected may be made up to the SECRET General Service (GENSER) level. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs): The Government anticipates that SMEs for each area will participate in the Technology Review. Some SMEs may be Systems Engineering and Technical Assistance (SETA) Contractors or University Affiliated Research Centers (UARC) personnel. The identity of the SMEs will be made known to all scheduled presenters prior to the scheduled session and, if desired, Non-disclosure Agreements (NDAs) should be executed between the non-Government parties prior to the briefing. Notification: All persons submitting White Papers will be notified whether they are selected participants in the Technology Review NLT 7 October, 2008. Feedback: PMS 485 will solicit participant feedback after the first quarterly Maritime Surveillance Systems Technology Review to improve the process as applicable.