Classification and tracking are two important techniques for enhancing active sonar performance. Classification rejects unwanted clutter using echo analysis, and tracking provides a history of target motion while rejecting clutter that doesn’t support realistic target motion. Continuous active sonar (CAS) has been proposed as an alternative to conventional pulsed active sonar (PAS), largely in ...

A human observer can locate surface ships in sequences of active sonar images based on intensity features due to the ship’s hull, wake, and its emitted cavitation noise. Three different sector-scan sonar image target detection and tracking algorithms are examined here that will inform further research towards the goal of developing a computer algorithm to perform the surface ship detection. Int...

A new sonar target tracking system is presented that is capable of accurately tracking targets at measurement rates exceeding 10 Hz. Two sonar trackers, each consisting of a transmitter and two receivers, are independently controlled to track sonar targets from bearing and range measurements. Bearing and range are accurately estimated using matched filters on two closely spaced receivers, with ...

This paper describes a geometric approach to underwater environmental modeling using sonar. We classify and localize geometric features of man-made objects by combining the boundary constraints of sonar returns obtained from multiple vantage points. The approach builds on our previous use of Reid's multiple hypothesis tracking (MHT) algorithm in order to resolve data association and motion corr...

This paper deals with automatic target tracking in video and sonar subsea sequences, an essential capability for automating tasks currently performed by remotely operated vehicles under pilot control. We describe two trackers, one for video sequences, the other for sector scan sonar sequences. No assumptions are made about the images, scene, or motion observed. To illustrate applications, we re...

Conventional active sonar processing systems typically reduce the sensor data from an intensity map to a pointmeasurement form via a detection thresholding process. This approach is often sufficient for detecting and tracking high signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR) targets but becomes more challenging for low SNR targets. Track-Before-Detect (TkBD) is an alternative tracking technique that supplies ra...

Progress in the implementation of state-of-the-art signalprocessing schemes in sonar systems is limited mainly by the moderate advancements made in sonar computing architectures and the lack of operational evaluation of the advanced processing schemes. Until recently, matrix-based processing techniques, such as adaptive and synthetic-aperture processing, could not be efficiently implemented in ...

This report describes a simulation model of sonar tracking, developed to explore the effect of networking sonars on tracking performance. The tracker is an extended Kalman filter with data association by nearest-neighbour in Mahalanobis distance. Data fusion algorithms also use Mahalanobis distance. Simulation outputs have been verified against analytical results where possible.

Many radar and sonar sensor systems generate several point measurements at every scan. Some measurements are due to targets and others are due to clutter, or scatterers, in the sensor field of view. The multitarget tracking problem is to estimate the number of targets and their states given the measurements. The multi-hypothesis tracking (MHT) method for solving this problem is based on two wid...