Automatic Acoustic Target Detecting and Tracking on the Azimuth Recording Diagram with Image Processing Methods

Abstract

Passive acoustic target detection has been a hot research topic for a few decades. Azimuth recording diagram is one of the most promising techniques to estimate the arrival direction of the interested signal by visualizing the sound wave information. However, this method is challenged by the random ambient noise, resulting in low reliability and short effective distance. This paper presents a real-time postprocessing framework for passive acoustic target detection modalities by using a sonar array, in which image processing methods are used to automate the target detecting and tracking on the azimuth recording diagram. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach can provide a higher reliability compared with the conventional ones, and is suitable for the constraints of real-time tracking.

Automatic Tracking of Weak Acoustic Targets within Jamming Environment by Using Image Processing Methods

“…This section uses 2D template matching [2] to estimate the DOA of the interested targets. The impulse response and transfer function of the matched filter are assumed to be h(θ, t) and H(u, v), respectively.…”

“…where 2 ] is the Fisher information. The optimal is obtained when α − α = C ∂ ∂α (ln f (t, α)), where C is a constant.…”

“…Many studies have recently been conducted to address multi-target jamming issues in sonar array applications. To obtain better tracking performance and stability, F. Yin et al [2] present a signal-noise separation-based denoise approach that has been applied in passive sonar detecting regions; Escot Bocanegra et al [3] use principal component analysis in radar systems to obtain high resolution range profiles, but they mainly pay attention to the denoising part rather than jamming target environment. X. Li et al [4] provide two types of observation modes based on unscented extended Kalman [5] and Kalman filter [6]: (a) static multi observation station and (b) movable single observation station.…”

“…Our research focuses on how to improve the weak-target-tracking performance under strong jamming-target circumstances by using a post-processing framework. Previously, we improved acoustic-target-bearing trajectories by combining image-processing methods in the post-processing framework of bearing time records [2]. We also presented a solution to suppress the interference of jamming targets on the 2021 China Automation Congress (CAC2021) [21], which is based on linear interpolation template matching, to address the issue of multi-target jamming.…”

Joint Model-Order and Robust DoA Estimation for Underwater Sensor Arrays

“…Putting all these values in (12), the SNR at the sensor array, for two different target detection scenarios, is calculated in Table 2. The SNR values in Table 2 are negative, which means that the received signal level is embedded in the background noise level [37,38]. Hence, sophisticated signal processing methods will be used to increase the SNR value.…”