The AN/AQS-20A is a

sonar Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances ( ranging), communicate with or detect objects o ...

mine countermeasure detection system, developed by

Raytheon Raytheon is a business unit of RTX Corporation and is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Founded in 1922, it merged in 2020 with Unite ...

. The system was initially tested for use on the MH-60S and MH-53E helicopters and as part of the mission package for the

littoral combat ship A littoral combat ship (LCS) is either of two classes of relatively small surface vessels designed for littoral warfare in near-shore operations by the United States Navy. It was "envisioned to be a networked, agile, stealthy surface comba ...

s (LCS) and some

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...

s of the . However, the

Chief of Naval Operations The chief of naval operations (CNO) is the highest-ranking officer of the United States Navy. The position is a statutory office () held by an Admiral (United States), admiral who is a military adviser and deputy to the United States Secretary ...

excluded the system from use on helicopter assets in March 2012, and only one destroyer has been outfitted with the specific mission package as of April 2009. The AN/AQS-20

naval mine A naval mine is a self-contained explosive weapon placed in water to damage or destroy surface ships or submarines. Similar to anti-personnel mine, anti-personnel and other land mines, and unlike purpose launched naval depth charges, they are ...

hunting sonar systems will be employed for deeper mine threats. The "Q-20", as it is commonly called, is an underwater towed body containing a high resolution, side-looking, multi-beam sonar system used for minehunting along the ocean bottom. This rapidly deployable system provides real-time sonar images to operators to locate, classify, mark and record mine-like objects and underwater terrain features. The AQS-20 has an active, stabilized underwater vehicle, equipped with advanced multiple-beam side-looking sonar. The underwater body is towed via a small-diameter electromechanical cable, while an operator can view the underwater image and identify objects on a video monitor while recording the data on

S-VHS S-VHS, the common initialism for Super VHS, is an analog video cassette format introduced by JVC in 1987 as an improved version of the VHS (Video Home System) format. S-VHS improved image quality by increasing the bandwidth of the luminance ...

digital tapes for post mission analysis. Operators actually "fly" the device underwater, controlling the depth of the device the same way that an

airplane An airplane (American English), or aeroplane (Commonwealth English), informally plane, is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, Propeller (aircraft), propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a vari ...

controls its altitude. Once located, the exact coordinates of mine-like objects can be used by

explosive ordnance disposal Bomb disposal is an explosives engineering profession using the process by which hazardous explosive devices are disabled or otherwise rendered safe. ''Bomb disposal'' is an all-encompassing term to describe the separate, but interrelated fu ...

(EOD) personnel to reacquire and neutralize the mine. In 2016, the Navy canceled the program after purchasing ten systems; the ten systems that had been purchased are slated to be competed against Textron Systems' system and the Knifefish unmanned underwater vehicle by General Dynamics and Bluefin Robotics. AN-AQS-20

Nomenclature

Per the

Joint Electronics Type Designation System The Joint Electronics Type Designation System (JETDS), which was previously known as the Joint Army-Navy Nomenclature System (AN System. JAN) and the Joint Communications-Electronics Nomenclature System, is a method developed by the U.S. War Depa ...

(JETDS), the nomenclature AN/AQS-20A is derived this way:

References

{{Raytheon Military electronics of the United States Raytheon Company products Military sonar equipment of the United States

Nomenclature

See also

References