System and method for acoustic tracking an underwater vehicle trajectory

摘要

A system (1) for tracking the trajectory (T) of an underwater vehicle (2) moving in a monitoring area (3), the system having: a number of sensors (6) located in known positions (S1, S2, S3) in the monitoring area (3) to detect, at respective receiving times (tik), an acoustic signal emitted by the underwater vehicle (2); and a processing unit (8) operatively coupled to the sensors (6) to determine the trajectory (T) as a function of the receiving times (tik). More specifically, the processing unit (8) determines an approximate position (P̃tk) of the underwater vehicle (2) as a function of differences between the receiving times (tik) ; and processes the approximate position (P̃tk) using a time-varying predictive filter, in particular a pseudolinear Kalman-Bucy filter, to estimate the position of the underwater vehicle (2) and derive the trajectory (T).