High
Frequency Marine Mammal Monitoring
(HF/M3)
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From the site
www.surtass-lfa-eis.com : The Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) has a string of underwater microphones, called hydrophones, towed behind a ship to pick up sounds in the ocean. SURTASS is used to listen for noises produced by submarines, so it is called a passive sonar. The Low Frequency Active (LFA) enhancement to SURTASS adds the ability to broadcast sounds, so the hydrophone array can listen for reflections of the sounds off of submarines. This technique is called active sonar, and it can detect submarines too quiet to be found with passive sonar. The SURTASS LFA sonar system uses specialized sounds and echo detection methods to maximize the range at which submarines can be detected and tracked. |
One of the active sonars developed by SSI is called the High Frequency Marine MammalMitigation sonar (HF/M3). It is currently deployed as part of the SURTASS LFA (Surface Towed Array Surveillance System Low Frequency Active) sonar system. A significant and coordinated research effort determined that LFA transmissions might cause harm to a marine mammal should it come within about 500-800 m of the vertical source array. HF/M3 is deployed at the top of the LFA array. In this configuration HF/M3 should reliably detect a large marine mammal out to about 2 km, thus allowing shut down of this powerful sonar system before an animal enters the very high sound pressure zone near the transmit array. HF/M3 is a mechanically steered sonar system and is specifically designed for the SURTASS LFA application.
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