n FUGRO Geosciences, Inc. – R&D methods for en- vironmental subsurface geophysical investigations.
n Oceaneering International, Inc. – R&D of ultralight, U/W autonomous surveillance systems.
n Ocean Sensors, Inc. (SBIR) – Develop low-cost system of shallow water sensors.
n Santa Barbara Infrared, Inc. – Develop algorithm measuring minimum resolvable temperature differences of thermal images.
n Scientific Environmental Research Foundation (SERF) – Alternate uses of deactivated U.S. Navy Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) stations.
n SDL Incorporated – Manufacture and integration of Polarization Independent Narrow Channel (PINC) Wave length Division Multiplexing (WDM) couplers.
n Sun Microsystems – Demonstrate feasibility Net- work Centric Re-engineering for enterprise level IT.
n Undersea Sensor Systems, Inc. – R&D of autonomous off-board surveillance sensor systems.Vice-President Gore announced at the recent National Ocean Conference held in Monterey, CA, that SPAWAR Systems Center San Diego and the Scientific Environmental Research Foundation (SERF) have entered into a Cooperative Research and Development (CRADA). This agreement will allow SERF to use deactivated U.S. Navy Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) stations as a data source for oceanographic research and educational efforts intended to create an awareness of the importance of the oceans to the environment.
Also attending the conference was President Clinton. He said that the opening of the deactivated SOSUS stations would help scientists "track marine mammals, predict deadly storms, detect illegal fishing and gain new insights into the complexities of climate change." SOSUS is a system of hydrophones and data processing equipment that was developed during the Cold War to monitor the activities of Soviet ships and submarines. SPAWAR Systems Center San Diego and its predecessor organizations have been involved with the design and development of SOSUS since its inception. Since the end of the Cold War, deactivated SOSUS sites have gone unused. The CRADA will allow this national asset to be used by the research and educational communities.
The SERF, with its private and public partners, has developed the National Oceanographic Environmental Monitoring System (NOEMS). NOEMS will use the deactivated SOSUS stations to collect ocean acoustic data for use by scientific investigators, educators and U.S. Navy researchers. The surplus SOSUS assets will permit scientists to do research in fields of science that relate to oceanography. Examples include:
n Monitoring and locating ocean seismic events
n Marine mammal research including monitoring and tracking
n Fisheries monitoring
n Deep ocean current monitoring
n Ocean temperature/pressure differentials (i.e., El Nino)SERF and SPAWARSYSCEN SAN DIEGO will work together to establish the NOEMS infrastructure, including U.S. Navy approved data sanitization methods and procedures to enable SERF to generate unclassified products from the undersea surveillance data. This acoustic data will be collected, packaged and disseminated in many different forms such as aural recording, videotapes, compact discs and raw acoustics data. This data will be disseminated to a user community made up of research scientists, Arial, Helveticaities and K-12 students.
With the intense interest of the White House, SECNAV, SPAWAR, and the Oceanographer of the Navy, and with the help of all personnel concerned, the agreement was completed and approved within a two-week period. The SSC SD Program Manager for this effort is David Clark, (D71), Maritime Surveillance Division. The agreement was put together and shepherded through the approval process by Dale Gurley (D14), Office of Science and Technology.
Contact: Dale Gurley at (619) 553-5630
View Previous Article | View Next Article | Back to Table of Contents