Demonstration of the invariance principle for active sonar

Active sonar systems can provide good target detection potential but are limited in shallow water environments by the high level of reverberation produced by the interaction between the acoustic signal and the ocean bottom. The nature of the reverberation is highly variable and depends critically on the ocean and seabed properties, which are typically poorly known. This has motivated interest in techniques that are invariant to the environment. In passive sonar, a scalar parameter termed the waveguide invariant, has been introduced to describe the slope of striations observed in lofargrams. In this work, an invariant for active sonar is introduced. This active invariant is shown to be present in the time-frequency structure observed in sonar data from the Malta Plateau, and the structure agrees with results produced from normal mode simulations. The application of this feature in active tracking algorithms is discussed.     

一种基于简正波模态消频散变换的声源距离深度估计方法

针对浅海环境中传播的低频宽带水声脉冲信号,基于简正波水平波数差和波导不变量之间的关系,本文提出了一种利用距离-频散参数二维平面聚焦测距与匹配模态能量定深的目标声源定位方法.首先,通过将由频散参数和波导不变量表示的前几阶模态相速度与由环境模型计算的相速度进行对比分析,从而估计出前几阶模态的频散参数和环境的波导不变量.其次,利用估计出的频散参数值和波导不变量对接收信号进行消频散变换处理,只有当接收信号的距离参数等于目标声源距离时,各号简正波的幅度均达到最大值,在距离-频散参数二维平面上,出现声压聚焦的现象,利用此现象可以估计目标声源的距离.不仅如此,消频散变换后的接收信号,前几阶模态在时域上明显地分离开来,可以准确地估计出前几阶模态的能量,采用多模态能量匹配的方式,可以估计出目标声源的深度.最后,通过对仿真和冬季获得的气枪信号数据处理结果验证了本文方法的有效性.     

Gray whale target strength measurements and the analysis of the backscattered response

One of the current Integrated Marine Mammal Monitoring and Protection System (IMPAS) directions is concentrated on the design and development of the active sonar modality representing just one component of the global system. The active sonar was designed, built, and tested during the Marine Mammal Active Sonar Test (MAST 04), producing whale detections and whale tracks. The experiment was conducted in January 2004 off the coast of California. One of the objectives of the current work is to distinguish whale backscattered responses from the ones generated by the environmental clutter in a waveguide. Furthermore, the work aims to identify and analyze the target signature features that are necessary for enhanced active sonar detection and classification of marine mammals. Over the years there have been very few documented attempts to capture and analyze the backscattering response of whales using an active sonar system. Nevertheless, whales, mostly owing to their size, their motion, and the aspect dependence of their backscattered field, possess desirable properties that help distinguish their scattered response from clutter and other environment related false alarms. As an initial step, data collected during the MAST 04 experiment are presented, and gray whale target strength measurements are obtained. Results are compared to the previously published whale target strengths. Additionally, an investigation is conducted in an effort to provide whale feature identification points suitable for automated detection and classification, as means of relating gray whale active acoustic signatures to their inherent characteristics and their motion.     

单水听器波导不变量被动测距

本文主要讨论利用声场干涉现象由单水听器被动测距的可行性及测距性能,为此提出了单水听器波导不变量被动测距方法,通过提取LOFAR图上干涉条纹、使用简正波模型计算波导不变量、频域相关法估计相对速度,最后依据干涉条纹方程得到声源距离估计量。数值仿真和海上实验结果验证了单水听器被动测距的可行性,并具备一定测距性能,在3 dB信噪比环境中,对于7 km处的运动声源,平均测距误差小于5%。本文方法具有设备简单、易于推广至阵列信号处理等特点,为声纳信号处理环境宽容性的提高及环境适配声纳的设计开拓了思路。     

声矢量传感器线阵波导不变量被动测距研究

介绍一种利用水声信道的统计不变特征(波导不变量)实现被动测距的方法。对接收LOFAR(Low FrequencyAnalysis Record)图使用HOUGH变换等边缘提取技术提取条纹,得到波导不变量以及抛物线参数的估计值,进而得到目标的CPA(Closest Point of Approach)点距离。矢量水听器的振速通道数据所得LOFAR图信噪比明显高于声压LOFAR图,可以提高测距精度。仿真和试验数据结果显示本方法能以较高的精度提取CPA点距离。对比波导不变量经验值和在线估计值所得最近点距离结果,发现使用具有一定精度的在线估计波导不变量值可以显著提高测距精度。     

水声信号处理领域新进展

本文介绍近30年来水声信号处理领域理论研究的新进展和在声纳设计中的应用。包括水声信号建模、声场匹配、海洋波导和内波现象的探索和研究、声矢量场信息获取和处理,低频水声信道的时/空相关特性,水下目标辐射噪声的不变特征量提取和检测技术,水下语音、图像传输和抗干扰技术。同时概述,声纳设计的前沿领域:大孔径拖曳线列阵声纳、高分辨力合成孔径声纳、深海传呼机等的发展情况。     

Striation-based beamforming for estimating the waveguide invariant with passive sonar

The waveguide invariant summarizes the pattern of constructive and destructive interference between acoustic modes propagating in the ocean waveguide. For many sonar signal-processing schemes, it is essential to know the correct numerical value for the waveguide invariant. While conventional beamforming can estimate the ratio between the waveguide invariant and the range to the source, it cannot unambiguously separate the two terms. In the present work, striation-based beamforming is developed. It is shown that the striation-based beamformer can be used to produce an estimate for the waveguide invariant that is independent of the range. Simulation results are presented.     

应用稀疏表示的宽带相干超分辨方位估计方法

针对无源声呐中宽带相干处理对邻近弱目标分辨能力仍不足的问题,提出一种相干聚焦后稀疏空间谱求解的宽带超分辨方位估计方法。首先将不同频点数据相干聚焦到参考频点,构成多测量矢量稀疏求解问题,然后采用二阶锥规划内点算法进行稀疏空间谱拟合,实现了宽带弱目标超分辨方位估计。仿真试验结果表明,该方法在弱目标分辨和方位估计精度方面优于宽带非相干和相干信号子空间高分辨处理方法。32元拖曳阵海试数据的处理结果验证了该方法的优越性能,同时说明了该方法在无源声呐探测中应用的可行性。      

Waveguide invariant focusing for broadband beamforming in an oceanic waveguide

The performance of broadband sonar array processing can degrade significantly in shallow-water environments when interference becomes angularly spread due to multipath propagation. Particularly for towed line arrays near endfire, elevation angle spreading of multipath interference often results in masking of weaker sources of interest. While adaptive beamforming in a series of narrow frequency bands can suppress coherent multipath interference, this approach requires long observation times to estimate the required narrowband covariance matrices. To form wideband covariance matrices which can be estimated with less observation time, plane-wave focusing methods have been used to avoid interference covariance matrix rank inflation. This paper extends wideband focusing to the case of coherent multipath interference. The approach presented here, called waveguide invariant focusing (WIF), exploits a robust relationship for the frequency dependence of horizontal wave number differences. Unlike matched-field methods, WIF does not model multipath wave fronts but rather makes the interference appear to occupy the same rank-one subspace across frequency. This permits formation of wideband covariance matrices without interference rank inflation. Simulation experiments in a realistic ocean environment indicate that adaptive beamforming using WIF covariance matrices can provide a significant array gain improvement over conventional adaptive methods with limited observation time.     

水中目标回波亮点统计特征研究

礁石和海洋动物引起的混响是主动声纳最严重的干扰, 如何区分礁石、鱼群和水中目标一直是制约主动声纳识别技术的难点问题. 针对礁石与目标回波难以区分的问题, 从特征识别的应用角度, 研究水中复杂目标全方位回波亮点特征的有效表征和应用方式, 基于目标回波亮点模型, 提出拷贝相关器输出的目标散射函数估计方法, 给出对目标回波亮点相对关系进行定量分析的目标回波特征统计表征方式, 并基于湖上实验提取了物理机理明确的目标回波亮点统计特征, 使得目标时间-角度谱中所蕴含的目标特征信息能够很直接地转化为主动声纳易于应用的目标特征. 关键词： 水中目标 回波亮点 统计特征     

点云投影结合轻量化卷积神经网络实现三维成像声呐快速目标分类*

三维成像声呐的成像结果是三维点云,基于点云的三维成像声呐目标分类方法具有网络结构复杂,计算量大的特点,针对这一问题本文提出了一种将三维成像声呐成像结果从三维点云投影至二维图像的方法,并且使用轻量化卷积神经网络实现了三维成像声呐快速目标分类。该方法首先对三维成像声呐波束形成后的波束域数据进行最大值滤波和阈值滤波,降低点云数据维度;接着,依据三维成像声呐的波束方向,将点云投影为深度图和强度图,分别保存点云的位置信息和强度信息;然后,利用深度图和强度图分别作为第一个通道和第二个通道构建混合通道图,将混合通道图作为目标分类网络的输入,从而将三维点云的目标分类问题转换为二维图像的目标分类问题;最后使用MobileNetV2网络实现了三维成像声呐快速目标分类。实验结果表明,通过本文提出的投影方法可以用二维图像分类网络完成三维成像声呐点云的目标分类任务;而且混合通道图比单独的强度图和深度图收敛速度更快,结合目标识别网络可以25fps实时的进行目标分类,在真实数据集上分类精度达到了91.13%。     

卷积神经网络主动目标方位估计

复杂海洋环境中信道的传输特性、时空变化、频散效应等一定程度上制约了主动声呐目标方位估计的性能。该文引入卷积神经网络(CNN),提出了适用于主动声呐中目标方位的高精度估计方法。仿真声场环境为浅海负梯度,主动发射信号为具有多普勒不变性质的双曲调频信号,水平线列阵作为接收装置,目标按仿真路线运动。该文利用Kraken进行声场数据仿真,并对接收的信号在频域做均匀加权常规波束形成,进而进行卷积神经网络的模型训练和测试。数值仿真研究表明,该文所用方法可以有效估计目标波达方向,对信噪比具有一定的鲁棒性。     

阵不变量匹配主动声呐目标深度辨识

水面/水下目标深度辨识可以在主动声呐探测过程中快速筛选感兴趣目标。根据目标多径返回信号到达时间与目标深度的关联性,该文提出了基于水平线阵的主动脉冲响应匹配目标深度辨识方法,该方法利用主动信号传播特性结合阵不变量理论提取脉冲响应,并与拷贝声场匹配实现目标深度估计。在校正了目标多径回波的方位变化后,该方法提取的时域特征较为稳定,并且只在时延估计距离处进行深度搜索。通过水平阵收集的宽带实验数据,在连续的多次回波中实现了对水面/水下目标92%的辨识成功率,验证了该方法在浅海环境下的目标深度估计能力。     

矢量声纳高速运动目标稳健高分辨方位估计

针对水声矢量信号处理框架中的高速运动目标低信噪 比小快拍条件下的稳健高分辨方位估计问题, 将压缩感知技术应用于水声矢量信号空间谱估计模型中. 结合声矢量传感器结构特性, 探讨了基于声压振速联合处理的广义时域滤波方法; 结合矩阵空域预滤波理论, 设计了基于阻带约束通带均方误差最大值最小的空域滤波器, 研究了矢量声纳空域预滤波方法; 结合以上分析, 提出了基于压缩感知技术的时空联合滤波高分辨方位估计方法, 给出了方法的数学模型、物理解释及具体实施步骤.理论分析和计算机仿真试验表明, 新方法对于小快拍数 条件下的矢量声纳高速运动目标高分辨方位估计问题, 具有较低的双目标分辨门限和较高的估计精度, 有着良好的应用前景.湖上试验验证了方法的有效性. 关键词： 声矢量传感器 空间谱估计 时空滤波 压缩感知     

一种适用于多输入多输出声呐的稳健空时自适应检测方法

针对多输入多输出声呐在水下探测场景中获得的空时快拍数量不足导致空时自适应检测性能下降的问题, 提出一种适用于小空时快拍数情况下的稳健空时自适应检测(STAD)方法。首先将斜对称特性推广到多输入多输出(MIMO)声呐空时自适应检测中, 并利用该特性将空时快拍数量扩展至原来的两倍; 然后利用迭代自适应方法实现对空时协方差矩阵的重构; 最后根据广义似然比检测(GLRT)准则推导出检验统计量。计算机仿真结果表明, 所提方法可以在小空时快拍数情况下准确估计空时协方差矩阵, 大幅减小空时自适应检测对空时快拍数量的需求, 提高多输入多输出声呐在小空时快拍数情况下的检测稳健性。      

Perception-based automatic classification of impulsive-source active sonar echoes

Impulsive-source active sonar systems are often plagued by false alarm echoes resulting from the presence of naturally occurring clutter objects in the environment. Sonar performance could be improved by a technique for discriminating between echoes from true targets and echoes from clutter. Motivated by anecdotal evidence that target echoes sound very different than clutter echoes when auditioned by a human operator, this paper describes the implementation of an automatic classifier for impulsive-source active sonar echoes that is based on perceptual signal features that have been previously identified in the musical acoustics literature as underlying timbre. Perceptual signal features found in this paper to be particularly useful to the problem of active sonar classification include: the centroid and peak value of the perceptual loudness function, as well as several features based on subband attack and decay times. This paper uses subsets of these perceptual signal features to train and test an automatic classifier capable of discriminating between target and clutter echoes with an equal error rate of roughly 10%; the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve corresponding to this classifier is found to be 0.975.     

Robust time reversal focusing based on Maximin criterion in a waveguide with uncertain water depth

Time reversal processing(TRP) might be regarded as matched field processing with known environmental knowledge.However,the performance of TRP is degraded in an uncertain environment.A technique based on the Maximin criterion is proposed for enhancing the robustness of TRP in a waveguide with uncertain water depth.The relationship between the water depth and the focal spot translation is examined based on the waveguide-invariant theory.Then the time reversal transmission scheme with the Maximin criterion is performed to maximize the minimum transmission power on a target of interest.At the receiving end,coherent summation operation is carried out over the received data by a reception focusing bank.If it is necessary to enhance the target echo further,the iterative time reversal can be considered where the target echo corresponding to the first time reversal transmission is regarded as a secondary source.Numerical simulations and experimental results of the target localization in a waveguide tank have verified the effectiveness of robust TRP.     

一种基于模态域波束形成的水平阵被动目标深度估计

水面水下目标分辨与识别一直是被动声呐探测领域的难题.利用一种水平阵模态域波束形成算法获得己知方位目标声源的各阶模态强度,将其与不同深度的各阶参考模态强度进行匹配,最终实现了对声源的深度估计.仿真结果表明,该算法可以在信噪比为-10 dB的情况下,用300Hz带宽的信号样本,实现对声源深度的有效估计.系统分析了不同参数和不同波导条件对该方法目标深度估计性能的影响.其中,阵元数越多,模态样本数越多,计算频段越宽,方位估计精度越高,有效阵长越长,深度估计的性能越好.阵元间距和波导深度的变化不会影响该方法的深度估计性能,并且该方法的深度估计性能在声速剖面、海底参数等波导条件存在扰动时具有鲁棒性.     

水下无源声呐目标听觉域张量特征提取方法

特征提取是水下无源声呐目标分类识别的关键步骤,提出了一种基于听觉Patterson-Holdsworth耳蜗模型的听觉域张量特征提取方法。将耳蜗模型的滤波器冲激响应视为信号分解的基函数,根据听觉模型非线性尺度或常规线性尺度确定不同通道的中心频率,然后计算出相应通道的增益和带宽,并量化冲激响应的阶数和相位参数,得到信号分解基,再根据信号分解原理得到通道数×阶数×相位数的三阶张量特征,并通过计算测试样本张量特征与训练样本张量特征间的相似性实现了水下无源声呐目标的分类识别。海上实录无源声呐目标的分类识别实验表明,提取的张量特征具有比较好的分类识别性能,听觉模型等效矩形带宽尺度优于线性尺度划分中心频率,能够提高无源声呐的目标指示能力。      

Direction of arrival estimation for underwater acoustic target based on compressed sensing after blind reconstruction of array signal in frequency domain

The performance of direction of arrival(DOA) estimation based on compressed sensing(CS) decreases in the complex ocean marine environment.In order to tackle this problem,a method of DOA estimation for underwater acoustic target based on CS after blind reconstruction of array signal in frequency domain is proposed.Firstly,the received array data are transformed to frequency domain by Fourier transform and frequency domain wideband signal are divided into part overlapping multiple sub-band array s...