An improved target detection and azimuth angle estimation method using a single acoustic vector sensor

Abstract

In this paper, an improved underwater acoustic target detection and azimuth angle estimation method using a single acoustic vector sensor (AVS) is proposed based on time-reversal and convolution theory. The proposed method can be applied in the active and the passive sonar detection system. According to the conventional detection and estimation method based on complex acoustic intensity measurement, the mathematical and physical model of this proposed method is described in detail. Computer modelling and simulation is applied to demonstrate the proposed method’s effectiveness. In order to further verify the practical application performance of the proposed method, the research group carried out the open lake experiments. The computer simulation and open lake experiments results indicate that this method can realize the azimuth angle estimation with high precision by using only a single AVS. Compared with these conventional methods, the proposed method achieves better detection and estimation performance.