Abstract:
Abstract underwater tracking of submerged vehicles in a noisy acoustic
environment presents significant performance challenges caused by the presence
of countermeasures, multipath interference, and propagation loss. The challenge
is exacerbated in shallow water. The Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC),
Keyport, has assessed several techniques for improving underwater tracking
system performance. The study showed that implementation of a ``telemetric''
system based upon signal modulation techniques could afford considerable
benefits in performance. This has been confirmed through experiments conducted
at a shallow-water tracking range site on the continental shelf area of the
Washington State coast. The quality of ``raw'' tracking data rivaled that of
traditional data which had undergone postprocess ``smoothing.'' To perform these
experiments, a software-controlled, processor-based tracking system known as
Counter Measure Tolerant Telemetry and Tracking, or