Passive ranging of a moving target in the direct-arrival zone in deep sea using a single vector hydrophone

Abstract

The vector hydrophone covers more comprehensive sound field information over the sound pressure hydrophone. The passive target ranging method based on the shallow-located unmanned platform equipped with vector hydrophones is explored based on the measured surface ship data acquired in the deep-sea area in December 2021. First, a bearings-only target motion analysis (TMA) algorithm is proposed, determining the motion state of a moving target (e.g., azimuth angle, abeam time, heading angle, and the ratio of velocity to initial distance) in accordance with its horizontal bearing time recording (BTR) data. Subsequently, the loss function is built following the situation information and the average complex acoustic intensity to determine the real-time grazing angle of the target. Last, the real-time range of the target is determined in accordance with the situation information and the grazing angle. As revealed by the comparison of the calculated value of the sea trial data with the GPS trajectory, the average distance error of the target reaches 11.6%, the root mean square error (RMSE) of the grazing angle is 1.99°, the RMSE of the velocity is 1.9 kn, and the RMSE of the abeam time reaches 51.4 s.