Improved Underwater Horizontal Ranging Algorithm using Reflected Acoustic Wave

Abstract

In this paper, we propose an underwater ranging algorithm that estimates horizontal distance using reflected acoustic waves that have the largest sound pressure. We calculate sound pressure of received waves along the horizontal distance, and generate a table for the horizontal distance section according to the number of reflections of the largest sound pressure wave. We also estimate candidate distances based on the number of reflections and on ray tracing. Estimated horizontal distance can be derived by comparing the candidate distances with the generated table. We show that the proposed scheme is useful in long range environments where direct waves arrive weaker or later than reflected waves.