Acoustic Capacity Building in the Indian Ocean Region

By Vice Adm DSP Varma And Cdr (Dr) Arnab Das

11 Sep , 2016

The fractured maritime mandate in India and the involvement of multiple agencies and ministries for matters maritime, make it complicated to achieve synergy. The UWR, Goa is a defence facility under the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Earth Sciences is mandated to provide R&D support for ocean related aspects, then we have the Ministry of Shipping and Ministry of Science and Technology as other players. It is known that there are close to 17 agencies and ministries of the Government of India involved in maritime issues. The huge resource and support required for UDA is possible only when all these agencies come together for a long term commitment to enhance our UDA in the IOR. A comprehensive Maritime Strategy formulation with clear focus on UDA is the only way forward to synergise the efforts of all the possible players involved. The ‘Make in India’ initiative can be leveraged to contribute significantly to the Blue Economy with a clear maritime focus backed with an effective Maritime Strategy translating to enhanced Acoustic Capability in the future.

The Blue Economy

There has been significant discussion on the Blue Economy in the recent past1. Starting with the European Union (EU), many nations have declared the blueprint for their Blue Growth strategy. The economic downturn across the developed world has raised the urgency to propose innovative and competitive measures to go into new areas for economic, social and environmental growth for the future.2

The 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) in Rio de Janeiro (also called as ‘Rio+20’), the participating nations pressed for concepts of the Green Economy for ‘sustainable development and poverty eradication’. The island nations countered the Green Economy push and called for more in-depth attention and coordinated action on the world’s oceans and seas. The economic values of the seas or oceans whose potential got labelled as the ‘Blue Economy’.3

The small but important island nations of Mauritius and Seychelles in the IOR have made a strong case for a Blue Economy. Their leaders have shown firm commitment to sustainable exploitation of living and non-living marine resources and deep sea-bed minerals to ensure food and energy security. These nations are constrained by their size, technological and infrastructure limitations for the development of the maritime sector.4 They look towards India and China for support in developing their Blue Economy, critical for their economic progress and national growth. If India fails to respond adequately in the IOR and play a leadership role, the Dragon in waiting can easily take its place in the IOR. That may well become a strategic failure and security concern for India.

The hegemonies of the global powers need to be countered with the regional framework of sustainable economy and ecology…

The panic in the policy circles regarding the security concerns in the IOR has taken away much of our attention from the Blue Economy potential. Matching the Chinese naval expansion, or for that matter a military response to the Chinese economic aggression in the IOR may not be the most prudent one. The security concerns need to be balanced with a nuanced economic strategy that is able to exploit the potential of the Blue Economy in the IOR. India may do well in getting together with the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) nations to formulate an effective Blue Economy blueprint and engage the small nations in the IOR with a constructive economic agenda.5 The hegemonies of the global powers need to be countered with the regional framework of sustainable economy and ecology. Technology and research will play a critical role. No individual nation in the IOR has the capacity and capability to generate resources to meet the requirement. Regional cooperation is inescapable, and India does have a chance to play the leadership role with its young and dynamic human resource.

The ambitious Blue Economy for the IOR is probably becoming inescapable and critical for reviving the fledgling economy and generate jobs for the masses. The competitiveness of the nations in the IOR with respect to the West is possible only with “enabling and cross cutting technologies” with local on-site customisation. The tropical littoral waters of the IOR have very unique characteristics and the products and services need to be evolved for a smart and sustainable knowledge-based maritime economy. The technologies have to evolve for a sustainable management of the Indian Ocean, with enhanced understanding of the marine environment to balance the increasing pressure of human activities and the growing vulnerability of our coastal areas.6

Underwater Domain Awareness (UDA)

The starting point for any initiative towards effective Blue growth and governance with a coherent and systematic approach would be Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA). MDA is rooted in the ability to effectively monitor what is going on at any moment in the entire maritime space. The MDA as defined by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), is the effective understanding of anything associated with the maritime domain that could impact the security, safety, economy or the environment. The maritime domain has been defined as, “all areas and things of, on, under, relating to, adjacent to, or bordering on a sea, ocean, or other navigable waterway, including all maritime-related activities, infrastructure, people, cargo and vessels and other conveyances.”7

A more specific underwater version of the MDA has been defined as the Underwater Domain Awareness (UDA).8 The concept of UDA in a more specific sense will translate to our eagerness to know what is happening in the undersea realm of our maritime areas. This keenness for undersea awareness from the security perspective, means defending our Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC) against the proliferation of submarines and mine capabilities intended to limit the access to the seas and littoral waters. A recent example to quote would be the torpedo strike by North Korea in 2010 on a South Korean (ROKS) Naval ship Cheonan, killing 46 sailors out of the 104 personnel onboard.9However, just the military requirement may not be the only motivation to generate Underwater Domain Awareness.

The earth’s undersea geophysical activities have a lot of relevance to the well-being of the human kind and monitoring of such activities could provide vital clues to minimise the impact of devastating natural calamities. The pertinent example, could be the tsunamis in the recent past. In 2004, large parts of Asia were devastated by the earthquake in the Indian Ocean followed by a tsunami. The event was termed as the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history, killing over 2,30,000 people in 14 countries with Indonesia being the hardest hit, followed by Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.10 The event did wake up governments in the developing countries of Asia and even international agencies to improve monitoring systems and install tsunami early warning systems in the region.11

The collapse of the Newfoundland cod fishery in Canada is a typical example of how unregulated and unmonitored marine habitat can impact human livelihood and well being…

Again in 2011, an undersea earthquake off the Pacific Coast of Tohoku in Japan caused destruction and casualties. However, even though this tsunami was triggered by a magnitude 9.0 (Mw) earthquake compared to the earlier 2004 tsunami that was triggered by magnitude 9.1-9.3 (Mw) earthquake, the loss of life (over 15,500 dead) and property could have been minimised due to better monitoring and early warning and response systems12. Man cannot fight nature’s fury, however, better preparedness could minimise the damage caused by such disasters as clearly demonstrated by these two events in 2004 and 2011.

The commercial activities in the undersea realm have recently been bound by regulatory obligations for seismic explorations. The corporate entities are required to comply with prescribed acoustic noise levels to ensure conservation of environmental and biological habitat for marine species.13,14 There could be several factors that may contribute to the collapse of a particular species and eventually an entire eco-system. Thus, precise understanding of the species specific and ecosystem level changes in the habitat is critical.

The collapse of the Newfoundland cod fishery in Canada is a typical example of how unregulated and unmonitored marine habitat can impact human livelihood and well being.15 Overfishing with the use of modern automated fishing gear and sophisticated boats led to complete collapse of the fisheries and the Northern Cod bio-mass fell to one per cent of its earlier level, forcing Canada’s federal government to declare a moratorium in 1992, marking a significant change in the ecological, economic and socio-cultural structure of Canada. Over 35,000 fishermen and plant workers from over 400 coastal communities became unemployed.16

The underlying requirement of all the events discussed above is to know the developments in the undersea domain, make sense out of these developments and then respond effectively and efficiently to them before they take shape of an event. The Underwater Domain Awareness requires a multi-faceted and multi-tiered system that includes infrastructure and expertise from marine science, defence and management fraternity. The UDA at its heart, involves the core competence of acoustic sensing, supported by non-acoustic means to disseminate the information to multiple stakeholders like the security, earth sciences, industry and environmental agencies.17

UDA Technology Development

Maritime technology or more specifically technologies enabling Undersea Domain Awareness (UDA) saw the maximum development during the Cold War era to meet the military requirements of the two superpowers. Massive investments were made by both the sides to maintain technological superiority and the political compulsions of the Cold War did facilitate allocation of such funds for the military. The Submarine threat and countermeasures to keep the submarine at bay and monitor movement of these stealthy platforms in their own waters resulted in massive efforts to develop underwater surveillance. Technology was the only enabler. Underwater sensor technology, underwater studies to minimise the impact of the environment, deployment mechanisms and engineering solutions, metallurgy to sustain long-term deployments and intelligent systems to minimise human interventions got added impetus.18

The Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) was a massive Cold War infrastructure created by the US for its military necessity to track the Soviet submarine threat…

The post Cold War period brought a very new construct to the entire maritime strategy concept. The massive military spending characteristic of the Cold War era became politically unsustainable. Budget cuts became the norm and any ambitious military technology development project was not easy to get approval. More importantly, even environmental clearance for technological trial were scrutinised and was many a time rejected for the larger good. Public opinion shifted from unquestioned military build-up towards economic growth and navies have become mere policy instruments of the state.19 No more are Navies playing the sole role of a war-fighting fleet. Increasingly, we are seeing Navies being deployed for constabulary role, humanitarian relief assignments, environmental protection and monitoring and diplomacy. Worldwide we are observing that the concept of holistic maritime strategy, wherein a nation coordinates all its maritime activities and provides a framework to the maritime stakeholders like the navy, shipping, resource mining, fisheries and environmental control in pursuit of a grand strategy. Exclusivity of the Navy in the maritime domain is being replaced by the role of a facilitator and navies are even acquiring technologies and hardware to be able to meet this re-defined mandate.20

The specific UDA technology enablers are the underwater sensors that capture the data along with the noise and the environmental distortions, the algorithms that process the signal to minimise the noise and the channel impact followed by the precise information extraction for the specific application. The underwater medium is known to be extremely harsh and thus, requires special engineering solutions for deployment and sustenance and also high quality metallurgy to withstand corrosion and bio-fouling.

Strategically, it may always be advisable to possess the technology to produce the sensors to ensure uninterrupted supply even in adverse political situations (resulting in sanctions and embargos), however, operationally it is possible to import this technology for specific deployments though at high cost. It may be noted that this technology is extremely specialised and very few nations worldwide produce underwater sensors. The algorithms for minimising the channel and ambient noise distortions cannot be imported and every maritime nation with significant undersea stakes needs to get involved in oceanographic studies to understand the underwater environment in their waters to be able to optimise the sonar performance in their waters.

The IOR with tropical littoral waters is a special case where we find almost 80 per cent degradation in sonar performance compared to the deep water naval theatres. Such massive degradation, means substantial deployment of sensors to cover the same area for surveillance and monitoring. Even the information extraction gets limited due to severe degradation in the signal properties as it propagates in the medium. Long term oceanographic studies to understand the underwater medium behaviour is inescapable to capture every little variation and relate it to a possible source. Effective mitigation is only possible if we have precise information on the channel behaviour and are able to predict based on external inputs.

A very interesting fact about noise is that it, is highly contextual. The desired signal for one user may be noise for the other and even in one situation the otherwise noise could become the desired signal. The sonar or the sensor will record the received signal and the processing built into the system will extract the desired information. For a military sonar, the signal from an enemy platform is the desired signal and any other signal like a biological signal or reflections from undersea minerals is noise. Similarly, for an environmental scientist, the biological signal could be of interest and any submarine signal could be noise. Comprehensive UDA will mean understanding of everything that is happening in the undersea domain from the surface through the sea to the seabed at all times. Every stakeholder processes the UDA picture based on his specific requirement. The Cold War resources allowed the defence applications to develop and subsequently in the aftermath, most of these facilities or technologies were released for commercial applications or environmental initiatives.

Acoustic capability can be segregated into three parts – “to See, Understand and Share”…

Acoustic Capacity Building

The Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) was a massive Cold War infrastructure created by the US for its military necessity to track the Soviet submarine threat originating from the North and approaching the US mainland. SOSUS is a chain of underwater listening posts located around the world in places such as the Atlantic Ocean near Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom – the GIUK gap – and at various locations in the Pacific Ocean. The system was supplemented by mobile assets such as the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) and became part of the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS).21 The US secretly recorded continuous undersea noise for many years and limited the access to its defence scientists and naval experts involved in tracking Soviet vessels.

It was started in 1949 and towards the latter part of the Cold War, American biologist and environmentalist Roger Searle Payne got access to the SOSUS recordings and discovered the Humpback Whale songs. Payne’s findings were indeed revolutionary and were facilitated due to the high quality recordings made possible by the US Navy infrastructure.22 Subsequently, post the collapse of the Soviet Union, the entire SOSUS project was declassified in 1991 and the data and many such databases, recorded during the Cold War period were made available to researchers throughout US universities to undertake diverse studies and develop a far better understanding of the underwater domain. Some of the Cold War infrastructure is now being accessed by academicians to plan and undertake oceanographic studies.27

Another facility located just South of the Pt. Sur lightstation, along the Big Sur coastline is the US Navy Pt. Sur Naval facility to monitor incoming threats at the height of the Cold War. The network of sound powered hydrophones for underwater monitoring was the US Navy’s secret facility between 1958-1986. The facility was set up for top secret naval monitoring, however, the unclassified data of the mammal traffic passing through the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary was made available for scientific and educational studies. Subsequently, the Naval Postgraduate School established the Ocean Acoustic Observatory (OAO) in 1993 for the purpose of undersea research. The Ocean Acoustic Laboratory at the NPS established the Pt. Sur OAO and works very closely with the US Navy to provide more and more information regarding the Ocean environment and design and develop tools for enhanced UDA.23

Way Ahead

Acoustic capability can be segregated into three parts as famously referred in the maritime domain awareness context – “to See, Understand and Share”.24 When we look at the acoustic capability building in the IOR, we have to look at all the three parts. The immediate physical layer is the ‘See’ category, where we include the sensors, the deployment aspects in the undersea domain and the associated hardware required such as power supply and front-end electronics. Though such hardware including the sensor, power supply, deployment mechanism and enclosures and front-end electronics are not produced in this region, they have advanced significantly in the West, available to be shipped, though at high cost. We definitely need to focus on indigenous capability to produce these hardwares in India, however, they may require high engineering and material science capabilities. It is hoped, that as the economic growth potential increases, the demand will increase and the economic viability will compel indigenous development.

The IOR with its tropical littoral waters has to develop its own capabilities and ensure sustainable growth for itself…

The second category is the “Understand” or the analysis capability. This is very critical and involves the study and understanding of the site specific medium characteristics and the local marine ecosystem.25 Import of technology does not work in this category. There have been enough efforts to import hardware but the analysis limitation undermines the success of any such projects, resulting in poor growth of the underwater maritime sector in the IOR. The complete source-path-receiver analysis for all possible applications needs to be undertaken with state-of-the-art infrastructure and analysis facilities for trying out innovative ideas of technology, products and applications prior to their commercialisation. It may be difficult to encourage corporate entities to invest such huge amounts to set up facilities on their own. It may be cost-effective to pool in resources for such an initiative. Pilot projects may be tried out at Government funded facilities and all stakeholders of the UDA construct can come together for better indigenous capability building.

The third category of “Share” includes networking hardware, protocols and algorithms to transmit data/information from the node to the top of the network and across networks with proper security and accessibility hierarchy being adhered to. In this category as well, the initial import of technologies and ideas can be resorted to at the start and indigenous capability can be built over time. Underwater networks do have very unique network requirements and capabilities compared to the terrestrial networks and enough efforts are required to ensure reasonable performance.26 The analysis efforts in the “Understand” category will also feed useful information to enhance the networking capabilities.

India and the nations in the IOR have to look at such models to enhance their Underwater Domain Awareness (UDA) in the IOR and take a lead in the entire Blue Economy initiative. The IOR with its tropical littoral waters has to develop its own capabilities and ensure sustainable growth for itself and not allow global powers from outside the region to undermine its economic and environmental interests. The political instability in the IOR and the security concerns of piracy and maritime terrorism related incidents are not allowing the nations to come together and each is eyeing the other with suspicion. Military build up has created a Cold War-like situation in the region. However, the increased maritime investment is only towards imported technologies that have failed miserably when deployed in these waters. Nations are investing in naval build up disproportionate to their GDP but with minimal effectiveness. Blue economy is becoming a casualty of the security cacophony. India over the last three decades has invested significantly on its naval build up and the acoustic capability of the navy. The Underwater Ranges (UWR) at Goa is a unique facility set up by the DRDO for the Indian Navy to understand and enhance its acoustic and magnetic stealth capabilities.27, 28

The UWR, Goa comprises fixed sensors at a suitable depth with associated electronics to record and analyse the acoustic emissions from the ships and submarines of the Indian Navy. This range similar to the SOSUS system of the US Navy has the hardware and software capability to undertake complete acoustic analysis of the undersea environment and even evaluate performance of various other acoustic systems. The classified nature of the acoustic recordings of ships and submarines makes it a highly sensitive facility for national security and limits the possibility of any involvement of non-naval experts to involve themselves or even contemplate the use of the facility for any other underwater studies.

We in India see a significant lack of experimental studies of the kind we see in advanced nations. The academia and research institutes in the absence of infrastructural support for field experiments, produce technologies and systems that end up only in publications rather than useful technologies or products that can be deployed in the field. The present “Make in India” initiative is a very relevant concept, however in the absence of a comprehensive approach it may get limited. Multiple agencies and institutes have to come together, which can happen only under a broader Maritime Strategy. Infrastructure such as the UWR can go a long way to enhance UDA.

The UWR facility can serve as a readymade research and development field station for researchers to test their algorithms in real field conditions without actually going to sea. The fixed facility at UWR provides very high quality data for such efforts, compared to expiditions using other marine platforms. Pilot projects can be undertaken for security, commercial, environmental and even scientific research applications and then transformed into mass production, subsequently at other location to cover the vast coastline and EEZ that we have and even for the broader IOR.

Multiple trial and error efforts typically required for prototyping can be tried out and repeated cost and effort of going to sea may be avoided. The effective customisation of the indigenous hardware with on-site analysis capabilities will add significant commercial value to the sonar systems and sensor networks for deployment in the IOR. A state-of-the-art research and development facility that can support all the four stakeholders of the UDA construct would be a prudent way forward.

The fractured maritime mandate in India and the involvement of multiple agencies and ministries for matters maritime, make it complicated to achieve such synergy. The UWR, Goa is a defence facility under the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Earth Sciences is mandated to provide R&D support for ocean related aspects, then we have the Ministry of Shipping and Ministry of Science and Technology as other players. It is known that there are close to 17 agencies and ministries of the Government of India involved in maritime issues. The huge resource and support required for UDA is possible only when all these agencies come together for a long term commitment to enhance our UDA in the IOR. A comprehensive Maritime Strategy formulation with clear focus on UDA is the only way forward to synergise the efforts of all the possible players involved. The ‘Make in India’ initiative can be leveraged to contribute significantly to the Blue Economy with a clear maritime focus backed with an effective Maritime Strategy translating to enhanced Acoustic Capability in the future.

Notes

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Economy#cite_note-Paradigm_Publications-1.

2. http://ec.europa.eu/maritimeaffairs/documentation/publications/documents/blue-growth_en.pdf.

3. https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P3-3767587971/harnessing-the-blue-economy.

4. http://cimsec.org/blue-economy-agenda-indian-government/12996.

5. http://www.iora.net/blue-economy/blue-economy.aspx.

6. http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2015/518775/IPOL_STU(2015)518775_EN.pdf.

7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_domain_awareness. Accessed on 01 Dec 2015.

8. Lieutenant-Commander David Finch, Comprehensive Undersea Domain Awareness: A Conceptual Model, Volume 7, Number 3 (FALL 2011) Canadian Naval Review.

9. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROKS_Cheonan_sinking

10. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami.

11. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1223_051223_tsunami_warning.html.

12. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami.

13. http://www.nature.com/news/marine-life-needs-protection-from-noise-pollution-1.18342.

14. http://ec.europa.eu/environment/marine/eu-coast-and-marine-policy/marine-strategy-framework-directive/index_en.htm.

15. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/oceans/seafood/understanding-the-problem/overfishing-history/cod-fishery-canadian/.

16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_the_Atlantic_northwest_cod_fishery.

17. Lieutenant-Commander David Finch, Comprehensive Undersea Domain Awareness: A Conceptual Model, Volume 7, Number 3 (FALL 2011) Canadian Naval Review.

18. Bryan Clark, The Emerging Era in Undersea Warfare, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), January 22, 2015. Available at http://csbaonline.org/publications/2015/01/undersea-warfare/.

19. MAJ Tan Wee Ngee, Maritime Strategy in the Post-Cold War Era. Pointer, V26 N1, Jan – Mar 2000. Available at http://www.mindef.gov.sg/safti/pointer/back/journals/2000/Vol26_1/6.htm

20. Ensuring Secure Seas: Indian Maritime Security Strategy, New Delhi, 10 October 2015. Available at http://indiannavy.nic.in/sites/default/files/Indian_Maritime_Security_Strategy_Document_25Jan16.pdf.

21. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOSUS.

22. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Payne#cite_note-4.

23. http://www.nps.edu/Academics/GSEAS/ptsur/.

24. D. Michael, Carsten, Global Legal Challenges: Command of the Commons, Strategic Communications, and Natural Disasters, 2007, Naval War College Press.

25. I.F. Akyildiz , D. Pompili and T. Melodia, “Challenges for Efficient Communication in Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks”, ACM SIGBED Rev., vol. 1, no. 1, 2004.

26. R.B. Manjula and S. S. Manvi, “Issues in underwater acoustic sensor networks”, Int. J. Comput.Electr.Eng., vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 1793-8163, 2011.

27. http://www.drdo.gov.in/drdo/labs/NSTL/English/index.jsp?pg=facility.jsp.

28. http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spotlights/indian-navy-underwater-ranges/.

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