Reliable Target Area of Uncertainty from an Underwater Acoustic Source(s)

Signal Systems Corporation will develop Buoy Localization and Uncertainty Estimation (BLUE) which will accurately estimate areas of uncertainty for selected target echoes. The area of uncertainty will be significantly reduced by incorporating advanced buoy localization methods and by retrospective multiple hypothesis tracking on selected receivers with lower detection thresholds. The buoy localization techniques will reduce buoy location errors, sound speed uncertainty, and compass bias errors. The multiple hypothesis tracker will reduce target azimuth errors by repeated measurements of the targets angle of arrival. We seek to reduce the circular error probability radius by a factor of two (2), resulting in a four times reduction in AOU. Accurate and reliable AOUs will be computed from the position probability density function of the target, using in-situ estimates of the relevant target localization parameters. The buoy localization algorithms and retrospective tracker will be used to assess the effects different buoy patterns have on the resulting target AOU.