Habor protection with underwater acoustic barrier: Method and system

Active acoustic detection of unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV) remains challenging because of weak target echoes in backward scenarios. In this paper, a real-time forward detection method using limited target data was proposed. Trained dimensionality reduction technique was employed to suppress dominant direct blast interference. A novel sonar system was developed based on detecting target-induced variations in the transmitted acoustic field. High-frequency underwater acoustic barriers were established by deploying multiple source and receiver buoys with proposed method embedded. Remote sensing was realized through satellite communication and post-processing. A sea trial was conducted to evaluate the system performance. The timing of each crossing event was clearly observed, and target range was further estimated through data fusion. The system performance was found to be influenced by the channel and the source-target-receiver geometry. The effects of ambient noise and direct blast interference were comparatively analyzed.