Research Summaries

Back Evaluating Performance of Directional Sensors in Support of Detecting and Tracking Targets of Interest in Real Ocean Environments

Fiscal Year 2021
Division Research & Sponsored Programs
Department NPS Naval Research Program
Investigator(s) Smith, Kevin B.
Joseph, John J.
Sponsor Office of the Chief of Naval Operations (Navy)
Summary Directional sensors provide additional information about sources of sound in the underwater environment. Using several types of directional sensors deployed in various ocean environments, our team will evaluate system performance, measure sensor sensitivity to the ocean environment, investigate methods for extracting additional information and examine the limits of sensor applicability over frequency bands of interest. Sensor data include acoustic signals from sources such as distant merchant vessels with AIS tracking, programmable deployed training targets (e.g., EMATTs), various UUV systems deployed in the area, various marine mammal vocalizations of opportunity and background noise. In this study, our team explores shallow water vector field properties, vector field signal coherence in both shallow and deep water environments and the ambient noise vector field and noise cross-correlation between vector field channels. The study includes analysis of coherent signal processing techniques and detection and tracking of low SNR targets, such as AUVs. We explore improvements in signal detection, tracking, and separation of in-band interferers and investigate the fusion of multiple sensor data through traditional approaches (e.g., N-bearing estimators) and modern machine-learning techniques. Results of this study provide insight on the performance and potential utility of directional sensors in real world environments for naval applications.
Keywords acoustic vector sensors directional sensors passive acoustic monitoring
Publications Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal
Data Publications, theses (not shown) and data repositories will be added to the portal record when information is available in FAIRS and brought back to the portal