Motion Parameters Estimation of a Moving Target Based on Instantaneous Frequency Estimates Using a Passive Acoustic Sensor

Abstract

This paper studies a method for estimating the motion parameters [Formula: see text] using the instantaneous frequency estimates of the acoustical signal emitted from a moving target in the air and received by an acoustic sensor placed on the ground. Here, [Formula: see text] is the target’s travel speed, [Formula: see text] is the closest point of approach slant range, [Formula: see text] is the source acoustical frequency, and [Formula: see text] is the time at the target get to the closest point of approach to the sensor. A novel relationship formula between the instantaneous frequency and motion parameters is derived and an algorithm for estimating the motion parameters based on the solution of quadratic nonlinear optimization from the instantaneous frequency estimates is proposed. The instantaneous frequency is estimated by searching the peak of a polynomial Wigner–Ville distribution. An approach for calculating the optimal window width in a polynomial Wigner–Ville distribution is proposed. Numerical examples are provided for validating our theoretic claims.