Geopolitics

Acoustic Capacity Building in the Indian Ocean Region
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Issue Vol. 31.2 Apr-Jun 2016 | Date : 11 Sep , 2016

The IOR with tropical littoral waters is a special case where we find almost 80 per cent degradation in sonar performance compared to the deep water naval theatres. Such massive degradation, means substantial deployment of sensors to cover the same area for surveillance and monitoring. Even the information extraction gets limited due to severe degradation in the signal properties as it propagates in the medium. Long term oceanographic studies to understand the underwater medium behaviour is inescapable to capture every little variation and relate it to a possible source. Effective mitigation is only possible if we have precise information on the channel behaviour and are able to predict based on external inputs.

A very interesting fact about noise is that it, is highly contextual. The desired signal for one user may be noise for the other and even in one situation the otherwise noise could become the desired signal. The sonar or the sensor will record the received signal and the processing built into the system will extract the desired information. For a military sonar, the signal from an enemy platform is the desired signal and any other signal like a biological signal or reflections from undersea minerals is noise. Similarly, for an environmental scientist, the biological signal could be of interest and any submarine signal could be noise. Comprehensive UDA will mean understanding of everything that is happening in the undersea domain from the surface through the sea to the seabed at all times. Every stakeholder processes the UDA picture based on his specific requirement. The Cold War resources allowed the defence applications to develop and subsequently in the aftermath, most of these facilities or technologies were released for commercial applications or environmental initiatives.

Acoustic capability can be segregated into three parts – “to See, Understand and Share”…

Acoustic Capacity Building

The Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) was a massive Cold War infrastructure created by the US for its military necessity to track the Soviet submarine threat originating from the North and approaching the US mainland. SOSUS is a chain of underwater listening posts located around the world in places such as the Atlantic Ocean near Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom – the GIUK gap – and at various locations in the Pacific Ocean. The system was supplemented by mobile assets such as the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) and became part of the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS).21 The US secretly recorded continuous undersea noise for many years and limited the access to its defence scientists and naval experts involved in tracking Soviet vessels.

It was started in 1949 and towards the latter part of the Cold War, American biologist and environmentalist Roger Searle Payne got access to the SOSUS recordings and discovered the Humpback Whale songs. Payne’s findings were indeed revolutionary and were facilitated due to the high quality recordings made possible by the US Navy infrastructure.22 Subsequently, post the collapse of the Soviet Union, the entire SOSUS project was declassified in 1991 and the data and many such databases, recorded during the Cold War period were made available to researchers throughout US universities to undertake diverse studies and develop a far better understanding of the underwater domain. Some of the Cold War infrastructure is now being accessed by academicians to plan and undertake oceanographic studies.27

Another facility located just South of the Pt. Sur lightstation, along the Big Sur coastline is the US Navy Pt. Sur Naval facility to monitor incoming threats at the height of the Cold War. The network of sound powered hydrophones for underwater monitoring was the US Navy’s secret facility between 1958-1986. The facility was set up for top secret naval monitoring, however, the unclassified data of the mammal traffic passing through the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary was made available for scientific and educational studies. Subsequently, the Naval Postgraduate School established the Ocean Acoustic Observatory (OAO) in 1993 for the purpose of undersea research. The Ocean Acoustic Laboratory at the NPS established the Pt. Sur OAO and works very closely with the US Navy to provide more and more information regarding the Ocean environment and design and develop tools for enhanced UDA.23

Way Ahead

Acoustic capability can be segregated into three parts as famously referred in the maritime domain awareness context – “to See, Understand and Share”.24 When we look at the acoustic capability building in the IOR, we have to look at all the three parts. The immediate physical layer is the ‘See’ category, where we include the sensors, the deployment aspects in the undersea domain and the associated hardware required such as power supply and front-end electronics. Though such hardware including the sensor, power supply, deployment mechanism and enclosures and front-end electronics are not produced in this region, they have advanced significantly in the West, available to be shipped, though at high cost. We definitely need to focus on indigenous capability to produce these hardwares in India, however, they may require high engineering and material science capabilities. It is hoped, that as the economic growth potential increases, the demand will increase and the economic viability will compel indigenous development.

The IOR with its tropical littoral waters has to develop its own capabilities and ensure sustainable growth for itself…

The second category is the “Understand” or the analysis capability. This is very critical and involves the study and understanding of the site specific medium characteristics and the local marine ecosystem.25 Import of technology does not work in this category. There have been enough efforts to import hardware but the analysis limitation undermines the success of any such projects, resulting in poor growth of the underwater maritime sector in the IOR. The complete source-path-receiver analysis for all possible applications needs to be undertaken with state-of-the-art infrastructure and analysis facilities for trying out innovative ideas of technology, products and applications prior to their commercialisation. It may be difficult to encourage corporate entities to invest such huge amounts to set up facilities on their own. It may be cost-effective to pool in resources for such an initiative. Pilot projects may be tried out at Government funded facilities and all stakeholders of the UDA construct can come together for better indigenous capability building.

The third category of “Share” includes networking hardware, protocols and algorithms to transmit data/information from the node to the top of the network and across networks with proper security and accessibility hierarchy being adhered to. In this category as well, the initial import of technologies and ideas can be resorted to at the start and indigenous capability can be built over time. Underwater networks do have very unique network requirements and capabilities compared to the terrestrial networks and enough efforts are required to ensure reasonable performance.26 The analysis efforts in the “Understand” category will also feed useful information to enhance the networking capabilities.

India and the nations in the IOR have to look at such models to enhance their Underwater Domain Awareness (UDA) in the IOR and take a lead in the entire Blue Economy initiative. The IOR with its tropical littoral waters has to develop its own capabilities and ensure sustainable growth for itself and not allow global powers from outside the region to undermine its economic and environmental interests. The political instability in the IOR and the security concerns of piracy and maritime terrorism related incidents are not allowing the nations to come together and each is eyeing the other with suspicion. Military build up has created a Cold War-like situation in the region. However, the increased maritime investment is only towards imported technologies that have failed miserably when deployed in these waters. Nations are investing in naval build up disproportionate to their GDP but with minimal effectiveness. Blue economy is becoming a casualty of the security cacophony. India over the last three decades has invested significantly on its naval build up and the acoustic capability of the navy. The Underwater Ranges (UWR) at Goa is a unique facility set up by the DRDO for the Indian Navy to understand and enhance its acoustic and magnetic stealth capabilities.27, 28

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The UWR, Goa comprises fixed sensors at a suitable depth with associated electronics to record and analyse the acoustic emissions from the ships and submarines of the Indian Navy. This range similar to the SOSUS system of the US Navy has the hardware and software capability to undertake complete acoustic analysis of the undersea environment and even evaluate performance of various other acoustic systems. The classified nature of the acoustic recordings of ships and submarines makes it a highly sensitive facility for national security and limits the possibility of any involvement of non-naval experts to involve themselves or even contemplate the use of the facility for any other underwater studies.

We in India see a significant lack of experimental studies of the kind we see in advanced nations. The academia and research institutes in the absence of infrastructural support for field experiments, produce technologies and systems that end up only in publications rather than useful technologies or products that can be deployed in the field. The present “Make in India” initiative is a very relevant concept, however in the absence of a comprehensive approach it may get limited. Multiple agencies and institutes have to come together, which can happen only under a broader Maritime Strategy. Infrastructure such as the UWR can go a long way to enhance UDA.

The UWR facility can serve as a readymade research and development field station for researchers to test their algorithms in real field conditions without actually going to sea. The fixed facility at UWR provides very high quality data for such efforts, compared to expiditions using other marine platforms. Pilot projects can be undertaken for security, commercial, environmental and even scientific research applications and then transformed into mass production, subsequently at other location to cover the vast coastline and EEZ that we have and even for the broader IOR.

Multiple trial and error efforts typically required for prototyping can be tried out and repeated cost and effort of going to sea may be avoided. The effective customisation of the indigenous hardware with on-site analysis capabilities will add significant commercial value to the sonar systems and sensor networks for deployment in the IOR. A state-of-the-art research and development facility that can support all the four stakeholders of the UDA construct would be a prudent way forward.

The fractured maritime mandate in India and the involvement of multiple agencies and ministries for matters maritime, make it complicated to achieve such synergy. The UWR, Goa is a defence facility under the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Earth Sciences is mandated to provide R&D support for ocean related aspects, then we have the Ministry of Shipping and Ministry of Science and Technology as other players. It is known that there are close to 17 agencies and ministries of the Government of India involved in maritime issues. The huge resource and support required for UDA is possible only when all these agencies come together for a long term commitment to enhance our UDA in the IOR. A comprehensive Maritime Strategy formulation with clear focus on UDA is the only way forward to synergise the efforts of all the possible players involved. The ‘Make in India’ initiative can be leveraged to contribute significantly to the Blue Economy with a clear maritime focus backed with an effective Maritime Strategy translating to enhanced Acoustic Capability in the future.

Notes

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Economy#cite_note-Paradigm_Publications-1.

2. http://ec.europa.eu/maritimeaffairs/documentation/publications/documents/blue-growth_en.pdf.

3. https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3-3767587971/harnessing-the-blue-economy.

4. http://cimsec.org/blue-economy-agenda-indian-government/12996.

5. http://www.iora.net/blue-economy/blue-economy.aspx.

6. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/518775/IPOL_STU(2015)518775_EN.pdf.

7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_domain_awareness. Accessed on 01 Dec 2015.

8. Lieutenant-Commander David Finch, Comprehensive Undersea Domain Awareness: A Conceptual Model, Volume 7, Number 3 (FALL 2011) Canadian Naval Review.

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROKS_Cheonan_sinking

10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami.

11. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1223_051223_tsunami_warning.html.

12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami.

13. http://www.nature.com/news/marine-life-needs-protection-from-noise-pollution-1.18342.

14. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/marine/eu-coast-and-marine-policy/marine-strategy-framework-directive/index_en.htm.

15. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/oceans/seafood/understanding-the-problem/overfishing-history/cod-fishery-canadian/.

16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northwest_cod_fishery.

17. Lieutenant-Commander David Finch, Comprehensive Undersea Domain Awareness: A Conceptual Model, Volume 7, Number 3 (FALL 2011) Canadian Naval Review.

18. Bryan Clark, The Emerging Era in Undersea Warfare, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), January 22, 2015. Available at http://csbaonline.org/publications/2015/01/undersea-warfare/.

19. MAJ Tan Wee Ngee, Maritime Strategy in the Post-Cold War Era. Pointer, V26 N1, Jan – Mar 2000. Available at http://www.mindef.gov.sg/safti/pointer/back/journals/2000/Vol26_1/6.htm

20. Ensuring Secure Seas: Indian Maritime Security Strategy, New Delhi, 10 October 2015. Available at http://indiannavy.nic.in/sites/default/files/Indian_Maritime_Security_Strategy_Document_25Jan16.pdf.

21. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOSUS.

22. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Payne#cite_note-4.

23. http://www.nps.edu/Academics/GSEAS/ptsur/.

24. D. Michael, Carsten, Global Legal Challenges: Command of the Commons, Strategic Communications, and Natural Disasters, 2007, Naval War College Press.

25. I.F. Akyildiz , D. Pompili and T. Melodia, “Challenges for Efficient Communication in Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks”, ACM SIGBED Rev., vol. 1, no. 1, 2004.

26. R.B. Manjula and S. S. Manvi, “Issues in underwater acoustic sensor networks”, Int. J. Comput.Electr.Eng., vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1793-8163, 2011.

27. http://www.drdo.gov.in/drdo/labs/NSTL/English/index.jsp?pg=facility.jsp.

28. https://www.indiandefencereview.com/spotlights/indian-navy-underwater-ranges/.

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Vice Adm DSP Varma And Cdr (Dr) Arnab Das

Vice Adm DSP Varma Adviser to DRDO and Cdr (Dr) Arnab Das Commander in the Indian Navy.

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