Acacia Systems, UNSW partner up on sonar detection system

The collaborative project is seeking to enhance the tracking capabilities of the system across a range of acoustic, underwater environments and conditions through the development of high-resolution signal processing methods.

These allow for richer data processing and identification of potential target tracking, said Ted Bullen, chief research engineer at Acacia.

“These techniques will improve the detection and tracking of weak, intermittent and transient signals that current energy-based methods miss.”

Researchers at UNSW are working towards developing advanced processing, extraction and encoding techniques to achieve these goals, with Associate Professor Beena Ahmed explaining the technicality of how this will play out operationally.

“We will investigate how to preprocess acoustic data to extract features that go beyond conventional energy-based detections,” Ahmed said.

“This work will preserve critical temporal and spectral information to ensure robust integration with Acacia’s current tracking algorithms.”

VIEW ALL

The Onyx platform is already being used to support Defence through Operation Resolute, a whole-of-government effort that is seeking to maintain Australia’s borders and maritime security.

Acacia Systems said research from this partnership will likely be used to deploy the Onyx system aboard Ocius’ Bluebottle uncrewed surface vessels.

“We are building a symbiotic relationship between the core research threads in this project and the progressive capabilities deployed to the RAN under Acacia’s capability-as-a-service model,” Acacia CEO Bob Humphreys said.