Naval Information Warfare Centers (NIWC), Atlantic

The invention as disclosed is a buoyant cable antenna configured for both VLF/LF and HF signals. A 100 foot antenna element has a low-pass filter assembly positioned at the midpoint of the antenna element to block HF signals. The outboard tip of the antenna element is shorted. In this way, the antenna element appears as a 50 foot open circuit antenna element to HF signals and as a 100 foot shorted antenna element to VLF/LF signals.

A hydrogen generation apparatus for an underwater vehicle is presented, the apparatus including a hydrolysis reaction compartment, a mass of solid lithium hydride disposed in the compartment, inlet and outlet structure for passing sea water through the compartment to generate steam, lithium hydroxide and hydrogen gas, a condenser for condensing out the steam and retaining the condensate and lithium hydroxide, and a tank for collecting the hydrogen gas, the tank having outlet structure for discharging the hydrogen gas to a vehicle propulsion system.

Methods for processing overhead imagery of a vessel include the step of determining an initial classification and classification probability based on the vessel length and length-to-width ratio. Next, mutually exclusive deck features can be extracted from the image. For several embodiments, the extracted deck features that can be spherical tanks, hatches and containers that are stored on deck. The initial classification probability is then weighted using the results of the deck feature extraction step to yield a posterior classification probability for the ship image. If the posterior classification probability is above a predetermined value, the image is assigned a posterior classification. If the posterior probability is below the predetermined value, the vessel image is classified as unknown, and the gross tonnage of the vessel is calculated using the length and width of the vessel.

An apparatus and method for characterization of a directed beam of electromagnetic radiation is provided. An exemplary embodiment of the invention can include an apparatus and measuring technique method which uses a model for blackbody radiation that includes consideration all the degrees of freedom due to translation, vibration, and rotation of molecules or atoms that make up the absorber and a heat transfer term which averages the behavior of all the atoms of the material as a function of temperature. This apparatus and method provides an advantage of increased accuracy, substantial reductions of time required for processing, simplification of measuring processes, and reduction required equipment.

A system and method for a USV fleet is disclosed that can execute autonomous path-planning in an A2/AD environment, where communication reach back to a base station for instruction or Positional, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) data is not assured. This process has the ability to adapt considering the failure and intermittent connection of the ad-hoc USV-to-USV data network. This process also has the ability to continue operation considering the failure of any or all communications between members and is immediately prepared for reconnection should failures occur.