Patent ID: 7855934

Claim:
A hydrophone deployment system, comprising: a) a hydrophone assembly, comprising: i) at least four hydrophone units for converting an acoustic signal to an electrical signal, said hydrophone units being in a parallel, spaced apart spatial relationship with each other; and ii) at least one spacer element to maintain the hydrophone units fixed in the spatial relationship to each other, wherein said hydrophone units and spacer element are embedded in an encapsulant to form an elongated, flexible body; b) a container for enclosing the hydrophone assembly body in a coiled configuration; c) means for ejecting the hydrophone assembly from the container; d) a signal processing module for processing the electrical signals from the hydrophone units; and e) a transmitter module for converting said processed electrical signals and transmitting said converted signals to a remote receiver, wherein each hydrophone unit comprises a central wire of spring steel and a copper wire coiled around said central wire of spring steel, said copper wire being coated with a layer of polyvinylidene difluoride, and said hydrophone unit further comprising a layer of conductive silver ink deposited on the polyvinylidene difluoride-coated copper wire.