Workshops - 19th of January 2009

Please click on the links below to learn more:

Workshop A: Underwater Operations In Network Centric Warfare
Workshop B: Focus On Future Defence Underwater Technologies

09:30 - 13:00 Workshop A: Underwater Operations In Network Centric Warfare

Network-centric warfare (NCW), or net-enabled capability (NEC) as it is known in Europe, is a central theme to the current military development of the US, UK and other western nations. The concept is shaping a new approach to warfare, which emphasises a different way of using tactical information, and which exploits (and demands) new kinds of precision weapons. It is therefore playing an increasingly vital role in underwater operations. The concept is that attackers can be dispersed, relying on information provided by remote sensors over an information net. The object of this Master-Class is to make such abstract concepts concrete, and to provide a sense of the flavour of net-centric warfare, as opposed to current conventional, tactics. Sessions to be covered include:

What is network-centric warfare?
A new littoral context for underwater warfare
Sea Power 21 concepts and the underwater battlespace
New roles for submarines
Network-centric approaches to mine countermeasures
Network-centric approaches to ASW
Roles of UUVs, USVs, and UAVs as sensor distributors and effectors
New weapon requirements to exploit network-centric tactics
A Network-Centric approach to force protection
Sustained vs. rapid decisive operations
New requirements and possible show-stoppers

This workshop will enable you to:

Gain a full understanding of network-centric warfare and how it will impact future underwater operations
Understand how tactics and training will be impacted as underwater warfare becomes more networked
Assess the roles and significance of a range of sub-sea platforms and systems in the future net-enabled battlespace

Facilitated by:

Dr. Norman Friedman
International Naval Consultant and Author

Dr. Norman Friedman is an internationally renowned expert on naval technology and systems. Dr. Friedman was Deputy Director of National Security Studies at the Hudson Institute from 1973-84, specialising in the analysis of the Allied/Soviet Naval Balance, and served in the Office of the Secretary of the Navy from 1985-94. He has lectured at the US Naval War College, the Naval Postgraduate School, the Australian and Canadian National Staff Colleges and the British Ministry of Defence. He currently lectures on Net-Centric Warfare, the current focus of US Naval Policy, in both its policy and technical contexts, on Undersea and Naval Air Warfare, on Naval Command and Control, Maritime Surveillance and many related subjects. Dr. Friedman has published 33 books, recently including ‘Sea Power as Strategy’ and a handbook entitled ‘The Naval Institute Guide to World Naval Weapon Systems’ is was published in 2006. His forthcoming book on naval network-centric warfare is to be published late in 2008. His articles have appeared in numerous Naval Journals and he publishes a monthly column on ‘World Naval Developments’ in the Proceedings magazine of the US Naval Institute. A long-time consultant to the media, he frequently appeared on television during the Falklands and Gulf Wars and in connection with the Somalia, Bosnia and post-Gulf War Iraq crises.

13:30 - 17:00 Workshop B: Focus On Future Defence Underwater Technologies

Refreshments will be served:

This workshop will cover some of the key research programmes undertaken by TNO Defence Security and Safety into underwater technologies. By attending this workshop you will gain a full understanding of developments into the following topics and asses how you can best utilize these technologies in the future.

The workshop will take the form of presentations, demonstrations and groups discussions between delegates and speakers.

LFAS - Developments;
Peter Beerens Research Programme Manager at Underwater Technology, Observation Systems, TNO Defence, Security and Safety Low frequency active sonar is required to detect, localize and classify modern, silent submarines. The acoustic properties of the littoral regions make this a very challenging task. Current R&D aims at improving the signal-to-noise ratio in various ways: by transmitting specially designed signals with a large bandwidth, and to receive the echoes by triplet-arrays or even quad arrays. Sophisticated data processing is applied to reduce false alarm rates. An up-to-date visualization finally completes the technology.

Marine mammals and LFAS;
Frans-Peter Lam Research Programme Manager at Underwater Technology, Observation Systems, TNO Defence, Security and Safety In the light of the growing environmental awareness, it is no surprise that politicians and environmentalists are increasingly concerned about the effects of underwater sound on sea mammals and fish. Our current knowledge is largely based on experiments with animals in captivity. However, the behaviour of the animals should also be studied in their natural habitat. To this end, TNO and the Royal Netherlands Navy contributed to several controlled exposure trials in Norway. Here, data on the effect of low frequency active sonar (LFAS) sound on several species of whales and herring were collected. The whales were tagged with hydrophones and other sensors while the LFAS source was deployed.

Briefing on research programme “Torpedoes, DCL and CM”;
Ton van Koersel, Senior Scientist, Underwater Warfare Division, TNO Defence, Security and Safety Within this programme, knowledge was obtained to simulate the engagement between torpedoes and surface ships in the littoral environment. Information of torpedo characteristics, softkill-countermeasures, torpedo and decoy logic, active and passive sonar properties and wake characteristics was used to update TNO’s torpedo defence system testbed. The testbed was used within the programme to perform studies into area torpedo defence, countermeasure deployment and sensor performance degradation due to wake effects. The briefing will comprise a programme overview, results of the studies, and examples of simulated passive and active torpedo attacks with the torpedo defence system testbed.

Low cost solutions for sonar processing;
Ton van Koersel Senior Scientist, Underwater Warfare Division, TNO Defence, Security and Safety The Royal Netherlands Navy is performing a lifetime extension programme for the Walrus class submarines. Within the first part of the programme the sonar suite is upgraded to comply with NATO safety recommendations. The “Sonar Safety Walrus” project implementation started with the contract signature by the NL MOD in May 2008. TNO is involved in this project as a subcontractor. In the remainder of the programme the flank and towed array might receive an upgrade as well. TNO has developed a low cost solution with off the shelf hardware, to receive the sonar data, process the data and present the result to the operator. The processing was developed in Matlab, which makes it possible to easily test and include new functionalities, e.g. passive ranging, transient detection, adaptive beamforming and other results of the TNO research programmes. This briefing will describe the SSW project, the low-cost processing and the possible new functionality.

Sonar performance modelling;
Frans-Peter Lam Research Programme Manager at Underwater Technology, Observation Systems, TNO Defence, Security and Safety Simple sound propagation models assume spherical or cylindrical attenuation. Such models may be suitable for simple situations like a constant sound speed, but they are no longer reliable in the more complex situations encountered in practice. The presence of pressure, temperature and salinity profiles in the water column as well as the complex interaction with the sea surface and the ocean bottom strongly influence the sonar performance. The state-of-the-art sonar performance models are based on advanced propagation models that incorporate these effects. Furthermore, to predict the sonar performance, the future situation must be forecast. Examples of sonar performance prediction based on the TNO ALMOST model in combination with the oceanographic model HOPS will be presented. These results were obtained during the Battlespace Preparation ’07 trial in Italy, together with NURC and the Royal Netherlands Navy, among others.

Facilitated by:

Gerrit Blacquiere who is currently a Senior Research Scientist at Underwater Technology, Observation Systems, TNO Defence, Security and Safety, and double hated as the Associate Professor in Geophysics at Earth Sciences, Delft University of Technology. He previously held the position of the head of the Acoustics Department and project leader. His areas of expertise in the underwater arena include; Sonar, Seismic imaging and Echo-acoustic data processing. Gerrit holds a PhD geophysics, Delft University of Technology and an MSc physics, from the Delft University of Technology

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