Many nations must contend with the need to keep pathways in the oceans secure against an increasing number of maritime challenges under the constraints of limited capital to acquire naval platforms. Unmanned platforms such as Wave Gliders may help to address this problem. A Wave Glider is an unmanned underwater vehicle that can be equipped with a passive array and can remain deployed in the area of interest (AOI) for extended durations. They are capable of providing a layered defense to prevent adversaries from transiting the area undetected, thereby providing a low cost, persistent, anti-submarine warfare (ASW) solution. The capabilities of ASW Wave Gliders to successfully track a manned submarine were demonstrated during the Unmanned Warrior exercise in 2016, led by the British Royal Navy. Yet, the question of how to deploy a given number of Wave Gliders to detect a transiting adversary submarine remains relatively unexplored. This thesis aims to develop a model to determine the detection capability of deployed Wave Gliders that accounts for variables associated with the detection of underwater contacts, using passive sonar in an acoustically challenging underwater environment and with constraints on deploying unmanned assets. The model prescribes an optimal number of Wave Gliders required to achieve a given probability of detection and provides a reference for their placement in the AOI to minimize the probability of an adversary submarine transiting the area undetected.

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Lieutenant Commander, Indian Navy