Contemporary hull mounted sonars for mine counter measures – opportunities and limitations for their use

Abstract

The traditional mine hunting operation is performed using Hull Mounted Sonar (HMS), a long-range lower frequency sonar for detection and a short-range higher resolution sonar for classification. The challenge for this type of approach is that performance is limited by day-to-day environmental conditions. Typical values for detection are 500-700 meters under good conditions but these ranges can be reduced to 100 meters under severe conditions. The same restriction is valid for classification, which under realistic con-ditions is approximately 50 meters. Although contemporary HMSs detect and classified sea mines at longer distances and they have Computer Aided Detection, Classification software for processing and presenting underwater contacts, they still have shortcomings as a small stand-off distance.