Estimation of the background noise level with a horizontal array against spatially uncorrelated and structural interferences

A method of estimating the isotropic sea noise level with a horizontal array in the presence of uncorrelated interference and interference with a complex spatial structure is proposed and experimentally tested. The algorithm is based on the approximation of the Capon spatial spectrum of the received signal using a model Capon spectrum for the sum of isotropic noise and uncorrelated interference. A numerical simulation is carried out to study the dependence of the accuracy of the proposed method on the interference intensity, the distance from the array to the sources of structural interference, and the number of structural interference sources. It is shown that the use of the Capon spectrum provides a strong suppression of an intense structural interference source positioned near the array. The efficiency of the proposed method is confirmed experimentally.