Single Hydrophone Underwater Source Hyperbolic Passive Localization using Multipath Arrivals in Shallow Water

Passive underwater source localization using time difference of multipath arrivals (TDOMA) is considered in this paper mainly based on the identification of selected arrivals. Under the downward-refracting sound speed profile (SSP), sound rays experience multiple refractions and reflections on seabed and surface, which give rise to cluttered arrivals at the receiving point. However, multipath arrivals with same bottom reflections may gather together and arrive in a certain length of time with an appropriate configuration of receiver. Therefore, ray paths can be directly identified in a certain feature on impulsive time series acquired from received acoustic signal. Hyperbolic function and its linear asymptote function are hence engaged to construct least square estimator based on the time difference of multipath arrivals for a single hydrophone near the surface. And source location is estimated by four TDOMA records calculated from six different typical arrivals. The validation of this method is proved using simulated multipath arrivals and real acoustic data from the Asian Sea International Acoustics Experiment (ASIAEX) in East China Sea (ECS) conducted in 2001.