January 20, 201016 yr From Jane's DARPA looks to go deep with ASW sensor network By Richard Scott 20 January 2010 The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has disclosed plans for a deep ocean sensor network that could provide a long-range anti-submarine surveillance capability sufficient to protect 'blue water' Carrier Strike Group operations. This new initiative, which envisions a distributed system of sensors and sources on or near the ocean floor, harks back to the SOSUS (Sound Surveillance System) deep-water long-range detection capability deployed by the US Navy during the Cold War. It also signals a revival in interest in blue-water anti-submarine warfare (ASW), an area that has largely taken a back seat in the two decades since the end of the Cold War and the demise of the erstwhile Soviet submarine fleet. SOSUS used chains of bottom-mounted hydrophone arrays, connected by undersea communication cables to facilities on shore, to achieve long-range detections and cue area ASW forces. It is thought that DARPA's latest effort is looking at a deep-water sensor system that would afford a greater level of tactical utility. In a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for Deep Sea Operations (DSOP) released on 15 January 2010, DARPA's Strategic Technology Office suggests that as "technology drives peer-nation parity in traditional domains, the deep ocean offers an unused operational space to achieve significant gains in strategic capability".
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