Passive acoustic surveillance of surface vessels using tridimensional array on an underwater glider

Abstract

The NATO-STO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE) has proposed to approach the problem of monitoring marine traffic in defined sea areas by using passive acoustics on a mobile underwater platform, in particular by hosting a small volumetric acoustic array on an underwater glider. Passive underwater acoustic technologies applied to mobile autonomous underwater platforms such as gliders may allow: minimum environmental impact, covertness, long endurance, wide area coverage, near real-time, continuous ("24/7") monitoring and availability of several functionalities, ranging from detection to classification of acoustic noise sources. Gliders are particularly appropriate for this kind of application, as their utmost features are: (a) persistence; (b) discreteness; (c) portability; (d) scalability; (d) remote control. In the context of the EU FP7 PERSEUS project, CMRE's objectives were to detect and estimate the direction of arrival of boats through passive acoustics, by processing acoustic data in real time, directly on board the glider, through the application of appropriate algorithms, and then sending results to the PERSEUS Command and Control station for data fusion and visualization.