Integration of underwater sonar simulation with a Geografical Information System

This paper discusses the integration of a geographical information system (GIS) with a simulation model of the sensors (active and passive) used as components of a detection system on US Navy ships. The simulation model is a tool developed to improve threat recognition, undersea tactical awareness, countermeasure emissions, and counter-weapon fire control that enables surface ships to survive a salvo of torpedo attacks. The model, was implemented (2005-2006) in Java using AnyLogictrade (by XJ Technologies). A commercial GIS application provides data visualization, query, analysis, and integration capabilities along with the ability to create and edit geographic data. The simulation model runs and seamlessly gets geographical information from ArcGIS (by ESRI corporation) in order to make decisions such as avoiding a ship going aground. Statistics and animations are controlled by the simulation software, while the maps and the movements of the environment object above of the map is handled by ArcGIS.