Bio-inspired broadband SONAR technology for small UUVs

GORCA Technologies Inc. (GTI), is currently developing innovative broadband SONAR technologies based on biomimetic concepts. This technology is geared towards the development of small size sensors for small size MCM UUVs such as the REMUS, Morpheus or Ocean Explorer UUVs. The core of the technology is inspired by dolphins' biosonar. An embodiment of this advanced broadband SONAR technology is presented in this paper. The system offers both passive and active sensing for surveillance and reconnaissance tasks. It is shown how bio-inspired technologies can be used to augment the capabilities of SONAR systems based on simple COTS hardware architectures compatible with small autonomous platforms. The use of biomimetic concepts makes this sonar technology very robust in shallow and very-shallow water. Bio-inspired principles integrated into the sonar design include: bi-modal broadband waveforms and multi-aspect angle view of a target for echo visualization. These bio-inspired concepts, along with some core broadband adaptive sonar signal processing concepts are discussed in this paper. Early demonstrations of the technology during in-pool and in-situ tests are also presented.