Real time active sonar simulation in a deep ocean environment

Abstract

Accurate Simulations are important in all fields of science and engineering where experiments and real data are time consuming to obtain and are not easily accessible and/or free of cost. Particularly when operating in environments such as the deep ocean where it could take 2-3 hours for an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to get to a specific depth and where power is very limited. A new module called uSimActiveSonar has been developed in order to simulate an active sonar system with hydrophone data acquisition. This has been done through the use of middleware Mission Oriented Operating Suite (MOOS), ray tracing code BELLHOP as well as using the method outlined by the Naval Research Laboratory to simulate the effects of surface reverberation.