DOA estimation based on fourth order cumulant beamforming for nonuniform linear array of DIFAR sonobuoys

The Directional Frequency Analysis and Recording (DIFAR) sonobuoy has been widely used in underwater target localization because it can capture more information than the Low Frequency Analysis and Recording (LOFAR) omnidirectional sonobuoy. Recently, array processing for fields of DIFAR sonobuoys has attracted considerable attention in order to enhance the direction of arrival (DOA) estimation performance and accuracy. DIFAR sonobuoys may become irregularly spaced due to the deployment method and the drift experienced once deployed, resulting in a nonuniform array. In this paper, we demonstrate the fourth-order cumulant beamforming (FOC-BF) technique to estimate the DOA for a nonuniform linear array of DIFAR sonobuoys. FOC-BF was compared with the conventional beamforming (CBF) through simulation works. The results show that FOC-BF provides better spatial spectrum with lower sidelobes than CBF. Furthermore, FOC-BF provides superior DOA estimation accuracy over CBF at very low signal to noise ratios (SNR).

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► We propose the use of the FOC-BF with nonuniform linear arrays of DIFAR sonobuoys.
► FOC-BF reduces the high sidelobes which appear in the spatial spectrum of the CBF.
► FOC-BF has higher probability of success than the CBF method in low SNRs.
► FOC-BF has more computational burden due to dealing with higher dimension matrices.