Wide-Area Persistent Energy-Efficient Maritime Sensing

Abstract : The goal of this project is persistent maritime sensing by energy-efficient collection and telemetry of multichannel data from sensors distributed over a wide area. The endurance and coverage area of current maritime sensing methods are fundamentally limited by the energy used for communication, navigation, computation, and/or propulsion. Our concept overcomes these limitations by eliminating the need for RF electronics or navigational hardware at the sensors and instead uses a stand-off radar for sensor localization and data exfiltration (SLADE). The approach for persistent energy-efficient maritime sensing (PEEMS) consumes only milliwatts of power on the sensing package itself. This dramatic reduction in power consumption is achieved by using quasi-passive differential radar-cross-section (DRCS) signaling to telemeter sensor data to a ship or shore-based collection point. Meanwhile, radar signal processing provides localization of the nodes so that multichannel sensor data can be processed coherently or incoherently to achieve synoptic maritime sensing over a wide area.