Station-Keeping Gateway Communications Buoy 'Gatekeeper' Navy SBIR FY2005.1 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2005.1 Topic No.: N05-077 Topic Title: Station-Keeping Gateway Communications Buoy 'Gatekeeper' Proposal No.: N051-077-1148 Firm: SeaLandAire Technologies, Inc. 1510 Springport Rd Suite C Jackson, Michigan 49202 Contact: David Sparks Phone: (517) 784-8340 Web Site: www.sealandaire.com Abstract: As improvements are made to remote sensing platforms such as wake detection systems, surface communications for U.S. Navy submarines has become increasingly dangerous. Inserting an intermediate communications relay buoy at the surface would de-couple these otherwise vulnerable submarines, thereby protecting key military assets by extending their already stealthy characteristics. To further prevent submarines' locations from being disclosed during communications, the surface relay buoy must not compromise overall covertness. Eliminating local surface presence during buoy deployment and maintenance is the best method to avoid drawing attention to the location. To limit the need for maintenance, the buoy should have the ability to persist for long periods of time in the same location. The buoy should be unmoored to increase the utility of the system; this removes the need to match hardware to the water depth or current profile of the specific location while providing the option to command the buoy to a new location if necessary. Even more importantly, free floating systems are capable of surviving worse sea states than moored systems. SeaLandAire Technologies Inc., with the help of Undersea Sensor Systems Inc. (USSI), proposes to develop an innovative station-keeping, energy-harvesting communications gateway buoy (Gatekeeper) to address this opportunity. Benefits: A mooring free persistent ocean platform has many commercial, scientific, and military applications. SeaLandAire Technologies plans to use the technology resulting from the Phase I and follow-on Phase II programs to support present and future Navy programs, as well as commercial uses that would benefit from the development of a persistent ocean platform. The initial phase of the commercial roll out will be targeted at US Navy programs such as Deployable Autonomous Distributed System (DADS), Advanced Deployable System (ADS), and Mobile Inshore Undersea Warfare (MIUW) which have a need for a persistent gateway buoy to allow contact with shore based command and control stations. For this phase SeaLandAire will work with USSI whom is already an established contractor providing the sensor systems on several of these programs. After the initial phase of commercialization, when a significant quantity of the systems have been produced the price is predicted to decline to the point where the system is attractive for use in other, more price sensitive industries and applications. There is large potential for use of the platform by organizations or applications such as:  Perimeter monitoring of temporary sea bases  Oceanographic research applications  As a vehicle for data transfer between undersea sensor nodes, i.e. collect data and transit to another location for download to another sensor  Monitoring of marine fisheries and marine mammals  Channel or underwater obstruction marking  Law enforcement and homeland defense o Monitor and detect illegal drug trafficking o Monitor and detect illegal immigration activity  Weather monitoring systems SeaLandAire and USSI believe that these and other applications will benefit from the development and commercialization of a station keeping platform. The proposed system provides the necessary flexibility to evolve with and adapt to these challenging applications. Return