Robust passive diver detection in shallow ocean

This paper discusses the problem of passive detection of divers in a shallow water environment. The sound produced due to breathing of the open-circuit divers is prominent in the high frequency range of the data. We formulate a detector to detect the waveforms of a diver's breaths, which occur as periodic bursts of sound. This detector is robust to the presence of other interfering sources. Since the high-frequency noise spectrum in shallow waters is generally dominated by impulsive noise due to biological sources, we robustify the detector against the presence of these impulses to obtain improved detection performance. We demonstrate the effectiveness of these techniques using real data recorded from shallow waters around Singapore.