Open sonar suite for submarines

SPHERE® PASSIVE SURVEILLANCE, the compelling evolution of KALEIDOSCOPE 2.0 which we have developed over the past 20 years, laid the foundation for our open sonar processing platform and fully digitised hydrophones. Based on this open platform, we have also renewed our SPHERE®-based anti-submarine warfare (ASW) sonar with HUNTER 2.0, demonstrating our nearly 100-year history of success in the ASW market.

The SPHERE® PASSIVE SURVEILLANCE open sonar suite is an
advanced, fully integrated sonar system designed to meet the mission require­ments of modern conventional submarines. It provides full
spatial, full spectral and full temporal coverage.

• The detection and tracking functionality includes narrowband passive sonar, broadband passive sonar for contact detection, contact tracking and contact correlation.
• The analysis functionality integrates passive narrowband, acoustic intercept and customer-provided intelligence libraries, as well as tracking and contact classification tools.

System design

SPHERE® PASSIVE SURVEILLANCE is based on MOTS hardware
and performance-tested sonar processing software. The wet end
(hydro­phones) are fully designed, manufactured and tested in-house.
The modular design allows for easy upgrades and future enhancements, offering reduced life cycle costs.

At the core of SPHERE® PASSIVE SURVEILLANCE are the hydrophone arrays, which convert acoustic data into electrical data, and the sonar processor, which processes acoustic data into contact information.

Key features of SPHERE® PASSIVE SURVEILLANCE

• open architecture
• commercial standards
• MOTS
• military-hardened
• opportunities to implement technical innovations*
• allows for rapid change and the
• addition of new capabilities*
• ready for AI/ML based data analytics and big data processing*

* no need for additional industry support; customer-owned and confidential intellectual property