Underwater acoustic source localization strategy by a group of autonomous surface vehicles

Underwater acoustic source localization is important in many underwater applications. However, due to the intensity degradation of acoustic signal as the distance from the source increases, the possibility to detect and localize the source using a single surface platform become harder. This paper presents an underwater acoustic source localization strategy by a group of autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs). The proposed localization strategy consists of two phases known as target-search phase and target-drive phase. The target search phase is applied when none of the ASVs detect the acoustic signal while the target-drive phase take place only when at least one of the ASVs detect the acoustic signal. Simulation is performed to demonstrate the proposed localization strategy.