Satellite Data Assimilation for Naval Undersea Capability Improvement

Impact of the satellite data assimilation on the naval undersea capability is investigated using the ocean hydrographic data without and with satellite data assimilation. The former is the Navy’s Global Digital Environmental Model (GDEM) providing the monthly mean; and the latter is the Modular Ocean Data Assimilation System (MODAS) proving the synoptic data. The two environmental datasets are taken as the input into the Weapon Acoustic Preset Program to determine the suggested presets for a Mk 48 torpedo. The acoustic coverage area generated by the program will be used as the metric to compare the two sets of outputs. The output presets were created for two different scenarios, an ASUW and an ASW, and three different depth bands, shallow, mid, and deep. After analyzing the output, it became clear that there was a great difference in the presets for the shallow depth band, and that as depth increased, the difference between the presets decreased. Therefore, the MODAS data (in turn the satellite data assimilation) was optimized in the shallow depth band. The ASW presets also seemed to be slightly more resistant to differences in the presets than was the ASUW scenario. Key Words— Satellite data, GDEM, MODAS, weapon