Vector sensor processing results using data from the Makai experiment

Abstract

Interest in small mobile platforms such as AUVs and gliders, and fixed autonomous systems, whose small size and power budget severely limit their ability to deploy larger arrays, has stimulated interest in vector sensors (that sense both pressure and particle velocity). Such combined sensors provide performance that can only be duplicated by larger pressure-only hydrophone arrays. In September 2005, during the Makai experiment, we deployed a four-element vector sensor array in waters off the coast of Kauai in Hawaii. We will present comparisons of processing a towed source and acoustic communications packets recorded on the four-element vector sensor array and a comparable pressure-only sensor array. We will also discuss modifications to propagation models based on Gaussian beams and normal modes to predict particle velocity, showing comparisons between model predictions and our experiment data.