Military

San Clemente Island Underwater Range (SCIUR)

The San Clemente Island Underwater Range (SCIUR) is maintained and operated by the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, San Diego Site. The SCIUR is located off the northeastern side of San Clemente Island and consists of six bottom-mounted hydrophones that provide a coverage area of approximately 50 square nautical miles. The SCIUR has an acoustical, an optical and a radar system for surface impact location.

The acoustical system uses the six bottom-mounted hydrophones that are connected to the range facility building. Sound pulses are received by the hydrophones and detected and demodulated by the signal processor. The locations are then displayed on the graphics system. The tracking area is limited to the hydrophone coverage area of approximately 50 square nautical miles.

The optical system is composed of three tracking stations. At each station, range personnel operate survey equipment called theodolites. At the time of impact, the tracking station operators will manually "fix" their theodolites onto the target. The theodolites' bearings are then sent to a range facility computer which determines the location.

The radar tracking system is composed of two fire control radars. The radar data is consolidated into one data package that is transmitted from a centralized site and received at the range facility. The data is demodulated and serially transmitted to the range computer for position calculation and display on the graphics system.

In response to technical requirements, mines, sonobuoys, air-launched torpedoes, and vertical launch ASROCs (VLAs) are the types of impacts with accuracy requirements dependent on the object being tested. Ideally, this requirement is one-tenth of the accuracy of the deployment system; however, this requirement is not always feasible, and an accuracy of ±5 to ±10 feet would be a more practical requirement. The required coverage area is also based on the system being evaluated. For routine training on the deployment of mines, sonobuoys, and torpedoes, an area of 40 to 50 square nautical miles is sufficient. For larger scenarios with multiple exercises or concurrent system tests, an area of 100 to 150 square nautical miles would be needed. From an operational point of view, the SCIUR desires a fully automated, real-time system with a type of impact identification capability.