Low drag body conformal acoustic array

Abstract

A plurality of transducers, closely conforming to the surface of a low-drag ose, are baffle mounted in close pack configurations to eliminate grating lobes. The baffle assembly is mounted outside a pressure hull within a thin acoustically transparent fairing. A plurality of pressure compensators also attach outside the pressure hull. The cavity between pressure hull and fairing is filled with pressure compensating acoustic fluid. Larger portions of unused volume are first filled with a syntactic foam to minimize the amount of fluid required. The pressure compensators balance fluid pressure against external sea pressure to prevent fairing collapse. This array maximizes available nearby internal nose volume thus allowing beamforming electronics to be located within the pressure hull in close proximity to the array elements, connecting thereto via a plurality of short coaxial cables. The increased surface area of a conformal array permits use of a greater number of transducers resulting in wide aperture and a narrower beamwidth than is possible with a planar array. This array has the capability of steering a beam forward backward and to the side with little variation in beam sensitivity, and when scanning forward along the torpedo axis, projects a larger aperture forward than planar configurations.