Akoostix is moving into its fifth year of business and is going strong. We successfully and efficiently completed all contracts prior to government year-end, during our busiest quarter ever.
Some significant achievements include:

• Advancements in multistatic active sonar under contract to DRDC Atlantic including:
  • Development and evaluation of a first generation smart automation prototype. This prototype demonstrates that an appropriate combination of user input and computer algorithms (automation) can significantly reduce operator overload, while increasing system performance. In this case, DRDC’s highly effective clutter mitigation displays were used to help the operator designate interesting contact. These contacts were then automatically associated to potentially related detections on other sensors, fused into contacts, and finally used to generate a track. This work was very successful and resulted in a number of valuable ideas that will be explored during the next year.
  • Development and evaluation of the first generation Integrated Tracking and Aural Classification (ITAC) concept demonstration software. Here Akoostix created an advanced contact tracker capable of interacting with DRDC’s auralization-based classifier (and classifiers in general). The classifier is used to assist the tracker in associating the correct contacts with existing tracks for improved tracking, especially in high clutter areas. This work will continue into the next year with better integration and algorithm improvements.
  • Assisting with the design and conduct of experiments to evaluate new DIFAR sonobuoy designs and to gather data for experimentation in advanced multistatic concepts. This data will be analyzed in the coming year.
  • Assisting DRDC with improved environmental measurement and data analysis by improving systems used during sea trials, and developing automated data analysis algorithms and software that is now used to quickly derive environmental parameters such as transmission loss, reverberation characteristics, and multi-path delay.
• Advancements in marine mammal monitoring and mitigation under contract to DRDC Atlantic, including as a DRDC subcontractor in a contract for the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers Joint Industry Programme:
  • Assisting with the review of Active Acoustic Monitoring (AAM) systems that might be useful for detection of non-vocalizing marine mammals.
  • Analysis (automated processing and manual annotation) of a high volume of data (many days worth from 3 separate trials) to examine marine mammal vocalizations then compare these to automatic detector results across a number of sensor systems (sonobuoys, autonomous platforms, and towed arrays). Sensor performance, detector performance, and atypical sounds were all examined and recorded to the extent possible. This work included collaboration with the Bahamas Marine Mammal Research Organization that supported Akoostix by providing valuable assistance in helping to identify and classify atypical sounds. TNO also collaborated by providing data from their Delphinus towed array and open collaboration during interpretation of their data.
  • Assisting with the design and conduct of experiments to evaluate marine mammal localization options (sensor configurations and processing options) for a variety of vocalization types. This data will be used as truth data during experimentation, algorithm development, and algorithm evaluation in the coming year.
• Advancements in passive acoustic processing for the Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) and DRDC Atlantic including:
  • Significant advancements to DRDC’s desktop passive sonar processing application including addition of sonogram enhancement options that, to our knowledge, are not available in any other processing system. These additions along with a wide variety of usability enhancements have significantly increased the user base and general utility. Akoostix expects this trend to continue as both DND units and other government agencies such as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans adopt the application, and Akoostix progresses internal research and development projects aimed at productizing advanced system implementations using the same software and algorithms at its core.
  • Assisting the Acoustic Data Analysis Centre (ADAC) Pacific with advanced processing of data from the Neptune project including advanced tracking of targets using data from tri-axial seismic sensors embedded in the Earth’s crust at the bottom of the ocean. This approach has also been recommended for use in more conventional passive processing, and overland acoustic and seismic data processing.
  • Working with DRDC Atlantic and ADAC Atlantic to mine acoustic sensor data for anthropogenic transients and create a database in support of auralization-based classification research. This work also resulted in improved processes for analyzing and cataloguing acoustic transients.
• Progressing the design and development of DRDC Atlantic’s automated mine detection and classification software to accept more sonar data types and provide template-based classification, while improving the overall design and function of the software. A derivative of this software will be created to run in autonomous collaborative systems, while the current version is used for autonomous mine hunting research and development.With a new research analyst on staff, Akoostix is on target to exceed both sales and revenue targets again this year. Akoostix’ experience and capability continues to grow, as we demonstrate our strength as a provider of research and development and as a link between the research and industrial sectors.