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Background: The United States Department of Defense’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP) is hosting a workshop to evaluate the progress made in development of acoustic techniques to detect and classify unexploded ordnance (UXO) in the underwater environment and to outline a path for future direction. This includes both high and low frequency; imaging techniques and structural acoustic approaches; and includes proud, partly buried, and fully buried UXO. For each technology, the questions to be discussed include: What is the best level of performance currently available in different environments and for different types of munitions? What is the theoretical best performance that can be expected? What are the understanding and engineering barriers to achieving this performance? More specifically: How much will clutter or noise degrade sensor performance? Are robust target discriminators possible for all types of UXO and in all environments? How does the environment affect sonar performance and what environmental factors are the most critical to understand and predict performance? Can the acoustic systems be used for real-time environmental characterization? What are the optimal configurations for sonar hardware, platforms, and signal processing and are these systems available commercially or can they be adapted from evolving mine countermeasures (MCM) systems? How do we maximize performance of these acoustic systems? Answers to these and other questions will be used to develop future SERDP/ESTCP program direction.
Format: The workshop will begin with introductory presentations and white papers (see list below) on previous and current work, inventory of underwater UXO remediation sites, operational scenarios, and the science and technology of high- and low-frequency acoustic detection and classification. Breakout groups will develop perspectives on current state of underwater UXO research, directions for the future, and system requirements. Full group assimilation of breakout group perspectives and initial vision for the future will follow. A short (10-15 page) report including recommendations will be written shortly after the completion of the workshop.
Number of Participants: 25-40 expected; including participants outside the SERDP/ONR programs to provide new ideas.
List of Invited Participants: