Signal detection method using a single vector hydrophone in ocean acoustics

This paper focuses on the problem of transient signal detection using a single vector hydrophone in a horizontal isotropic acoustic field. The covariance matrix of the three sensor output quantities is analyzed in terms of its trace and determinant principal invariants, and the mathematical relationship between the signal-to-noise ratio and these invariants is established. Both the signal power and the ambient-noise power can be accurately estimated directly from the covariance matrix of the received data, and the signal-to-noise ratio can further be obtained. A signal power detector is proposed based on the theoretical analysis, and simulation results show that (i) it can detect signals with low signal-to-noise ratio and (ii) its performance is greatly improved compared with that of an energy detector under the condition of a nonstationary ambient-noise field. An experiment was performed to verify the theoretical analysis and the conclusions of the numerical simulation, and the data-processing results show that this method has good applicability in signal detection.