Single hydrophone passive acoustic ranging in deep water

Area of Science:

• Oceanography
• Acoustics
• Signal Processing

Background:

• Passive acoustic ranging estimates underwater sound source distances using single hydrophone data.
• Existing methods often require manual identification of acoustic arrivals and struggle with multiple sources or environmental noise.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel, automated multi-path arrival-based approach for single hydrophone passive acoustic ranging.
• To estimate the horizontal range between submerged sound sources and receivers in deep ocean environments.

Main Methods:

• Developed a cost function and optimization approach for automated ranging.
• Utilized multi-path acoustic arrivals, minimizing reliance on a priori arrival identification.
• Applied the method to underwater acoustic data from the ALOHA Cabled Observatory (ACO).

Main Results:

• Successfully estimated the horizontal range to 296 airgun shots.
• Demonstrated good agreement between estimated and true ranges, validating the approach.
• Showcased robustness to noise and environmental uncertainty in multi-source scenarios.

Conclusions:

• The presented automated single hydrophone ranging method is effective for deep ocean environments.
• The approach offers significant advantages in automation and handling complex acoustic scenarios.
• This technique provides a reliable tool for underwater acoustic source localization.