Separation of multiple time delays using new spectral estimation schemes

Includes bibliographical references.The problem of estimating multiple time delays in presence of colored noise is considered in this paper. This problem is first converted to a high-resolution frequency estimation problem. Then, the sample lagged covariance matrices of the resulting signal are computed and studied in terms of their eigenstructure. These matrices are shown to be as effective in extracting bases for the signal and noise subspaces as the standard autocorrelation matrix, which is normally used in MUSIC and the pencil-based methods. Frequency estimators are then derived using these subspaces. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated on two examples: a standard frequency estimation problem in presence of colored noise and a real-world problem that involves separation of multiple specular components from the acoustic backscattered from an underwater target.This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR 321TS). The Technical Agent was Coastal Systems Station, Panama City, FL

Underwater target detection using multichannel subband adaptive filtering and high-order correlation schemes

Includes bibliographical references.In this paper, new pre- and post-processing schemes are developed to process shallow-water sonar data to improve the accuracy of target detection. A multichannel subband adaptive filtering is applied to preprocess the data in order to isolate the potential target returns from the acoustic backscattered signals and improve the signal-to-reverberation ratio. This is done by estimating the time delays associated with the reflections in different subbands. The preprocessed results are then beamformed to generate an image for each ping of the sonar. The testing results on both the simulated and real data revealed the efficiency of this scheme in time-delay estimation and its capability in removing most of the competing reverberations and noise. To improve detection rate while significantly minimizing the incident of false detections, a high-order correlation (HOC) method for postprocessing the beamformed images is then developed. This method determines the consistency in occurrence of the target returns in several consecutive pings. The application of the HOC process to the real beamformed sonar data showed the ability of this method for removing the clutter and at the same time boosting the target returns in several consecutive pings. The algorithm is simple, fast, and easy to implement.This work was supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR 321TS) under Contract N61331-94-K-0018