Detection performance of the L/sub 1/ beamformer in the presence of underwater burst noise

The problem of detecting a directional random signal in independent non-Gaussian noise is addressed. In particular, a Gauss-Gauss mixture model is assumed for the total noise field. The approach consists of substituting a beamformer whose design is based on a least-absolute-value criterion for the MMSE (minimum mean square error) beamformer included in the optimum quadratic receiver for the Gaussian signal in the independent Gaussian noise problem. The analytical study and the reported simulation experiments show the robustness of the resulting suboptimum receiver in the presence of unexpected impulsive noise.<>