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Sonar Solutions
Abaco sonar solutions are deployed on countless vessels around the world, including the US Navy’s Virginia Class submarine.
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Sonar Solutions
A range of solutions based exclusively on industry standards, backed by three decades of experience in acoustic applications.
Abaco Systems was one of the first companies to offer commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products for acoustic applications, and today we offer an extensive range of solutions. Our products span the popular embedded computing architectures, including OpenVPX, VME and CompactPCI, and offer the powerful features that are key to acoustic applications.
We have been delivering state-of-the-art military computing sonar solutions for more than 30 years, so it’s not surprising that the industry’s leading prime contractors choose our products in many of their highest profile programs. In addition to our invaluable experience in sonar, our field-proven hardware offerings reach all the way from front-end data acquisition to back-end signal processing.
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Sonar Solutions
SWaP
Minimizing size, weight and power is one of the biggest challenges our customers face. That’s why we prioritize it in all our product designs.
You can benefit from our understanding of front end processing and back end processing to help you deliver the best sonar solution possible.
Front end processing
Considerations
For sonar applications, the two main considerations are the signal-to-noise ratio and the phase matching of the analog-to-digital conversion process.
Maximizing the signal-to-noise ratio is increasingly important to sonar designers because of threats with low signature responses such as the latest diesel generators. Once a signal is successfully received, it is impossible to locate the source without accurate phase information.
Minimize to maximize
The skill in designing for signal-to-noise ratio is to minimize the noise to maximize the signal itself. Minimizing noise will typically mean ensuring that the ADC silicon is separated from the digital components on the board. It should have its own filtered power supply, and other components should be placed on the board so that interference is minimized. Fully differential circuits should be used wherever possible.
Maximizing signal quality will typically require signal conditioning – ideally, on the data acquisition board itself. Signal conditioning can include functions such as signal amplification, attenuation, filtering and electrical isolation.
Phase matching
Detecting a signal may be important, but it is of little use unless the location can be determined. Careful phase matching across all channels on a circuit card, and all channels across multiple synchronized circuit cards, has been our design goal since day one. This applies not only to the start of acquisition, but also to ensuring that phase information is maintained during continuous operation.
Our products offer three levels of redundant synchronization designed solely to maintain this important information.
