Taking a single underwater unexploded ordnance (UXO) remediation system from initial concept to a successful deployment at a live site is estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars, requiring multiple funding cycles spanning at least a decade. A significant portion of this cost lies in the multiple deployments of the system at test bed sites during development and demonstration phases, in addition to the support required to seed, maintain and characterize the test bed site.  

The overarching objective of this project is to provide a tool that allows sponsors a more efficient and cost-effective means to evaluate underwater acoustic UXO remediation technologies. This will be accomplished by focusing on three technical objectives:  

1. Synthetically seeding data collected at the Sequim Bay Testbed with acoustic signatures for inert and clutter objects generated by the Target-In-the-Environment (TIER) tool.  
2. Processing the synthetically seeded time series data into data products.  
3. Adapting the pipeline established in the previous two objectives into a tool that is system agnostic.

The technology is a Hybrid Synthetic Testbed (HyST) Site Tool. The tool will take as input a set of raw time series data, collected by a given system, and which will serve as the background seafloor. The tool will synthetically seed the seafloor data by inserting acoustic signatures for inert munitions and clutter objects generated with the TIER tool. The insertion will occur in the time domain, such that the synthetically seeded time signals can be processed by the system-specific signal processing chains and associated detection, classification and localization (DCL) procedures. Typically, simulation tools support the development and testing of DCL procedures by generating synthetic data products. The TIER tool, however, computes time domain signals and mimics the exact system for which the background seafloor data was collected, thus allowing the coherent addition of the background and object signatures. Success will be measured in two ways. The first metric is a set of HyST data that replicates the Multi-Sensor Towbody Sequim Bay 2023 demonstration. The data products and DCL performance results will be used for validation. The second metric for success is the transition of a HyST Site Tool, which will be tested via a demonstration plan that involves having system evaluators use the tool in a series of virtual and in-person workshops. 

This project will provide an efficient tool to test a system without having to go through multiple costly demonstrations, in addition to reducing costs associated with underwater testbed site operations. The HyST Site Tool gives the Sponsors the flexibility to invest in the development and deployment of new systems at a fraction of the cost and timeline currently in place. A secondary benefit is that the development of the HyST Site Tool will result in a set of synthetically seeded data for Sequim Bay Underwater Testbed, allowing for scalability of insights to facilitate further advancements. (Anticipated Project Completion - 2028)