Underwater target tracking by means of acoustic and electromagnetic data fusion

Abstract

An interesting possibility for improved surveillance capabilities in littoral waters is the integration of multisensor systems by means of data fusion. Here, we describe how data fusion can be used for localisation and tracking of targets by means of passive underwater acoustic and electric field sensors. The data was fused using a Kalman filter. The filter was applied on bearing estimates from the acoustic data and estimates of the target position from the electrode array. The results show the positions of the targets are gained by fusion between the acoustic bearing and the electrode sensors, within the limits of their sensitivity