An Improved Broadband Target Localization Method Based on the Equivalent Vector Hydrophone
Yan Liang, Yu Chen, Zhou Meng, Weixuan Zhang, Yichi Zhang, Jingbo Hu · 2024
The vector hydrophone vertical array is an important form of array used in the underwater target localization field. This paper introduces an improved method for deep-sea broadband passive target localization. The conventional beamforming is initially applied to acquire the elevation angles. Subsequently, these angles are applied to compensate for the phase differences, and the four sub-arrays after compensation are treated equally as a vector element that is processed through the designated spatial filter. The equivalent vector element and spatial filtering processing fully utilize the array gain of the sub-array and effectively filter out the noise and interference from unexpected directions. Thus, the signal-to-noise ratio of the received signal can be improved. The accuracy of the estimated elevation angles and target depth is utilized to evaluate the proposed method's performance. The results of simulation and a sea trial that demonstrate this method can offer benefits of simple computation and high accuracy compared to the conventional method for a single vector hydrophone.