|
Russ Light
Principal Engineer
Bob Miyamoto
Associate Director
Paul Aguilar
Senior Field Engineer
Eric Boget
Engineer IV
Chris Craig
Maintenance Mechanic
Adam Huxtable
Field Engineer
Larry Joireman
Research Coordinator
Fred Karig
Principal Mechanical Engineer
Mike Kenney
Oceanographer III
Sean Lastuka
Engineer III
Trina Litchendorf
Oceanographer
Keith Magness
Field Engineer
Tim McGinnis
Senior Engineer
Nick Michel-Hart
Engineer III
Fran Olson
Senior Field Engineer
Pete Pehl
Diver
Peter Sabin
Senior Field Engineer
Dean Stewart
Field Engineer
Sam Sublett
UW Dive Safety Officer
Troy Swanson
Field Engineer
Keith Van Thiel
Engineer III
Tim Wen
Senior Engineer
Arctic Submarine Laboratory
 |
APL-UW deployed an underwater acoustic tracking range to support the U.S. Navy ICEX. The functions of the range were to ensure submarine safety and support their tests, and to track torpedoes during weapon testing. The tracking range data helped to evaluate the submarines' tactics. These data and those collected by the torpedoes' on-board sensors are used by the Navy to improve under-ice performance. All the gear for the range was shuttled to the camp during the construction phase. The APL-UW tracking team arrived as accommodations were made ready and set up the hardware in the command hut. The plan was to lay out two arrays of 4 hydrophones each (a quad), the first centered on the camp and the second about 5000 yards away, to support a large test area. The hydrophones were deployed at 100-foot depth and were cabled back to the command hut. The cable-laying was labor intensive—cable was reeled off by a person from a sled towed by a snowmobile, with two people walking behind to ensure enough slack in the cables for minor floe cracking. Each cable was thus laid from the camp out to a desired location where a hydrophone was then deployed. The choice of the locations resulted in a hydrophone geometry approximately square and ~800 yards on the side. Before the second quad could be deployed, a lead opened in the floe and set the potential hydrophone site adrift from camp. An aerial survey, followed by a snowmobile scouting trip, were made to find a new location for the second quad. But while laying the first cable to the new site, another lead formed and deployment was suspended. With a single quad, the range was able to track both the submarines and the torpedoes out to a distance of ~8000 yards. The performance of the range was greatly improved by the new Submarine Synchronous Transmitter (SST), a collaborative effort between APL-UW's Ocean Engineering Department and the Arctic Submarine Laboratory. They designed, built, and installed the SST on the submarines prior to ICEX. The system is robust and has two salient points. First, the system generates digital signals (analog signal generation had been used in all prior ICEX) for transmission, which worked successfully in concert with a prototype digital tracking range using a DSP algorithm for signal detection. APL-UW engineers expect to track a submarine at even greater distances by using more advanced digital signals. Second, the SST transducer assembly can withstand a large load. The transducer was mounted on top of submarine's sail and when the submarine broke through the ice, sometimes 4–5' thick, the transducer's housing was the first thing to smash through. The transducer survived multiple surfacings and showed not a scratch! |
|
|