U.S. Office of Naval Research Selects Dynamics Technology, Inc.
to Develop a Sonar Target Injection Simulator for Mine Countermeasures

TORRANCE, CA , March 30, 2005 – The U.S. Department of Navy, Office of Naval Research (ONR) has awarded Dynamics Technology, Inc. (DTI), a world-class provider of advanced sensor and signal processing products for synthetic aperture sonar and radar solutions, a two-year Discovery and Invention (D&I) award to develop image simulations from physics-based models. The contract requires DTI to develop a sonar target injection simulator for synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) and side look sonar (SLS) imagery. This simulator will develop imagery using a physical model of the mine target and inject this into a scene of collected sonar data for the bottom clutter returns. DTI will validate the simulator results against Mine Countermeasure (MCM) computer-aided detection and classification (CAD/CAC) algorithms and related measures.

MCM sonar systems are required to aid the U.S. Navy entering foreign ports and landing troops from deep water right through to the beachhead for amphibious operations. With the increased emphasis on Homeland Defense and escalating terrorist threats, government and military officials understand the importance of maintaining and protecting critical routes and harbors. The same MCM systems can be used for Homeland Defense.

DTI’s PROSAS™ – an advanced sonar processor – provides the spatial resolution required to detect and classify mines at long ranges, such as resolution of inches at hundreds of yards. Compared to conventional sidescan sonars, SAS has the potential to increase area coverage rate (ACR) by an order of magnitude while maintaining continuous high resolution.

This increase in both ACR and resolution creates enormous amounts of image data and data rates. These data and rates are far too large for human operators to sift through in a reasonable amount of time, thus requiring CAD/CAC capabilities. The CAD/CAC systems require training and testing against large numbers of mine target images.

“We are extremely honored to assist the Office of Naval Research with this timely issue and take great pride in the Navy’s confidence in DTI’s advanced sensor and signal processing capabilities,” said Dr. John F. Pesaturo, Senior Vice President of DTI’s Marine Systems business.

DTI previously developed SAS image simulations from physics-based models in an earlier ONR project. This new program extends the earlier work to incorporate collected clutter regions, which will allow for an efficient method of creating CAD/CAC training data. The injection simulation will enable DTI to create the large quantities of target scenes required for training without requiring the sonar to collect large amounts of data on the targets – only a few clutter scenes from different bottom types are required. This will significantly accelerate the deployment and upgrades of MCM sonars for the Navy.

Dynamics Technology, Inc. (DTI) is a diversified, employee-owned research and development company providing integrated sensor and signal processing products and services for marine, intelligence and homeland security missions. DTI employs over 100 people at offices in Southern California and the metropolitan Washington D.C. area. For further information on DTI’s synthetic aperture sonar technology contact business@dynatec.com or visit our Web site at www.dynatec.com.