A Low Cost, Long-Life Deep Water Acoustic Sensor Assembly

The old proverb, "The devil is in the details" certainly applies when engineering any complex system. This is especially true of designing deep-water acoustic sensors, a process that requires coming to grips with rigorous environmental and performance requirements. Among these, are the ability for the sensor assembly to withstand the extremes of temperature and pressure characteristic of the deep ocean, the ability for the sensor assembly to operate continuously and reliably on the ocean bottom for decades, the need to minimize power consumed by the sensor assembly for autonomous sensor assembly arrays, and the need for the sensor assembly to be compatible with deep water acoustic array designs. Unfortunately, dealing with all the devilish details to produce a deep-water acoustic sensor assembly that meets these requirements can be very expensive. Fortunately, General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems, Inc. recently developed a low cost, long-life deep-water acoustic sensor assembly to meet these and many other rigorous environmental and performance requirements. The resulting acoustic sensor assembly is significantly less expensive and smaller and than other comparable sensors