WASHINGTON, Dec. 27 (UPI) -- The U.S. Navy awarded a contract for development of a stealthy periscope that will make it tougher to detect submarines operating just below the surface.
Lockheed Martin Maritime Systems in Syracuse received the $8.7 million pact as part of the Low Profile Mast program, which seeks to develop an electro-optic periscope that has a smaller visual cross-section than the traditional periscope, the Pentagon said Wednesday.
The system will make it more difficult for radar to detect either the scope itself or the wake it produces as the sub travels through the water.
The contract runs through December 2008.
Lockheed has been involved in overhauling the venerable sub periscope. The Virginia-class subs currently entering the fleet will be equipped with a scope that is based on fiber-optic video imagery, allowing the crew to see what is on the surface on a television screen. Lockheed's ISIS system processes and stores the images, which include infrared.
There is still, however, the issue of having to raise the mast in potentially dicey waters, particularly close to shore and near enemy destroyers equipped with increasingly-sophisticated radar.
A California company, Arete Associates, has patented what it says is an underwater camera that will allow subs to see what's topside without raising the mast at all. The system involves a camera that takes a picture looking straight up and software that eliminates the visual distortion caused by waves on the surface. The result is an image of ship hulls.
