Underwater acoustic target recognition using attention-based deep neural network

Underwater acoustic target recognition based on ship-radiated noise is difficult owing to the complex marine environment and the interference by multiple targets. As an important technology for target recognition, deep-learning has high accuracy but poor interpretability. In this study, an attention-based neural network (ABNN) is proposed for target recognition in the pressure spectrogram with multi-source interference using an attention module to inspect the inner workings of the neural network. From data obtained during a September 2020 sea trial, the ABNN exhibited a gradual focus on the frequency-domain feature of the target ship and suppressed environmental noises and marine vessel interference, which led to high accuracy in the target detection and recognition.