Shallow Water Acoustic Vector Sensor Array AutoNomous System (SVAAN) for Coastal Surveillance Applications

Abstract Shallow Water Acoustic Vector Sensor Array AutoNomous System (SVAAN) is a passive acoustic monitoring system using vector sensors. Acoustic vector sensors measure acoustic pressure and particle velocity, and an array of such sensors are very useful in underwater source localization. SVAAN is thus developed for surveillance applications in coastal waters and designed for a 100-m depth rating. The main objective of this work is to present SVAAN that is developed as a sea bed mounted system, consisting of two vector sensors and four hydrophones. In addition, an inertial sensor has been included to measure the system orientation when deployed. This was deployed as a bottom mounted unit in the shallow waters of South-West Bay of Bengal to measure the noise from boats/ships and localize the source. The acoustic data are analyzed, Direction of Arrival is estimated using Multiple Signal Classification for source localization, and the performance of SVAAN is studied. In addition to that, the tracking of boat noise has been estimated from the experiment data. Results and further enhancement of the system are discussed.