Optimization of deployment depth for active towed array sonar (ATAS) using simulated annealing

Abstract

The active towed array sonar (ATAS) is an active operating sonar towed behind the surface ship and deployed at various depths. The performance of ATAS may vary with the deployment depth. This study proposes a method which calculates the optimal deployment depth using simulated annealing (SA) in order to reduce the total computational time spent in the direct search of the deployment depth. We define a sonar performance function (SPF) with the probability of detection, which represents as a degree of how well the ATAS might perform at particular deployment depth. Then, the optimal depth is defined as the depth where the SPF is maximized. The SPF depends on the acoustic environment, target position and source-receiver depth. The optimization results are compared with the direct calculation of SPF at all deployment depth of source and receiver. Also, our study provides the optimal depths in the area of East Sea of Korea.