The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is launching the Persistent Aquatic Living Sensors program to gather the responses of living things to underwater vehicles and relay the information through a network of man-made hardware. (DARPA)
Scientific American: Military Tries Out Fish as Underwater Spies
The sophisticated sensing behaviors of marine organisms could serve as a surveillance system that aids national security
We humans often watch and wonder at wildlife. But a defense agency’s new initiative turns the tables—it aims to deploy marine animals to keep an eye on human activity.
The agency wants to know if sea life ranging from bioluminescent plankton to goliath grouper can serve as components of underwater surveillance systems capable of detecting the enemy’s oceangoing drones, large nuclear submarines and other underwater vehicles. The research effort is called Persistent Aquatic Living Sensors (PALS).
Many marine animals respond audibly or visibly to sound, optical, electromagnetic and chemical shifts in the water around them. For instance, schools of black sea bass change their behavior when disturbed by underwater vehicles, and certain microbes react to the magnetic signatures of submarines. Existing surveillance technology can pick up this behavior but typically has treated it as background noise.
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WNU Editor: There is more information here .... From shellfish to plankton, DARPA program turns creatures into sensors (Navy Times).
