ERAPSCO / Sonobuoy, a joint venture between electronics manufacturing firm Sparton and Ultra Electronics (ULE) subsidiary USSI, has awarded subcontracts worth $13.3m to its parent firms.
As part of the $10.6m and $15.6m deals awarded to Sparton Electronics Florida and USSI, respectively, the firms will build and supply passive and active sonobuoys to ERAPSCO.
The latest subcontracts are aimed at supporting the multiple international deals that the joint venture has for proposed multiple underwater missions.
The passive and active sonobuoys will be used for the detection, classification and localisation of opponent submarines during peacetime and combat operations.
In addition, sonobuoys can be used to assess environmental circumstances, in a bid to help install top search tactics, as well as for communication with friendly vessels.
Furthermore, they can transmit an acoustical signal source and receive underwater signals of interest, which are then sent to monitoring units for analysis.
Passive sonobuoys can be deployed to initially detect submarines and for the localisation of targets, while its active counterpart can rapidly and accurately detect targets in extreme environmental conditions, alongside either quieter or attack-mode submarines.
Some of the specific sonobuoys can detect electric fields and magnetic anomalies, in addition to the light generated by microscopic organisms disturbed by the course of a submarine.
