Data driven source localization using a library of nearby shipping sources of opportunity

A library of broadband (100-1000 Hz) channel impulse responses (CIRs) estimated between a short bottom-mounted vertical line array (VLA) in the Santa Barbara channel and selected locations along the tracks of 27 isolated transiting ships, cumulated over nine days, is constructed using the ray-based blind deconvolution algorithm. Treating this CIR library either as data-derived replica for broadband matched-field processing (MFP) or training data for machine learning yields comparable ranging accuracy (∼50 m) for nearby vessels up to 3.2 km for both methods. Using model-based replica of the direct path only computed for an average sound-speed profile comparatively yields∼110 m ranging accuracy.