21st Century Systems, Inc. Wins Navy Contract
21st Century Systems, Inc. announced that it will begin work on a Phase I SBIR Navy contract "Parametric Structures for Integrative Backscatter models and Environmental Database" (PSIBED) to provide an understanding of how sound waves interact with the sea floor. The contract is for 6 months, with an option for an additional 3 months. The work is directly useful to the Navy for use in deploying sound sensors at the bottom of the ocean. Ultimate plans are for it to be used by operations under the Ocean Bottom Characterization Initiative and the Littoral Battlespace Sensing, Fusion & Integration (LBSF&I) program. The LBSF&I program will produce a huge database of ocean properties such as temperature, salinity and sound speed (velocity), wave (surface/internal) characteristics, water currents, environmentally induced ambient acoustic noise characteristics and optical properties. Data collected in PSIBED will be assimilated into the database. PSIBED (pronounced “SeaBed”) will work on the problem of collecting, storing and using acoustic bottom backscatter (BBS) information to develop a better model of the general sea bottom environment. Part of the work will focus on defining all parameters that are relevant to BSS and how to gather that information. Constraints include developing an approach that will work with existing sea floor models, as well as minimizing interference with current data collection efforts. PSIBED is an ideal candidate to be commercialized for seafloor mapping and oil exploration applications as well as fishing population and distribution studies.
