Target detection method of the narrow-band continuous-wave active sonar based on basis-group beamspace-domain nonnegative matrix factorization for a reverberant environment

The proposed algorithm deals with a detection problem of target echo for narrow-band continuous-wave active sonar in the underwater environment in this paper. In the active sonar systems, ping signal emitted for target detection produces a signal that consists of multiple reflections by many scatterers around, which is called reverberation. The proposed algorithm aims to detect the low-Doppler target echo in the reverberant environment. The proposed algorithm estimates the bearing, frequency, and temporal bases based on beamspace-domain multichannel nonnegative matrix factorization. In particular, the bases are divided into two basis groups – the reverberation group and the echo group, then the basis groups are estimated independently. In order to evaluate the proposed algorithm, a simulation with synthesized reverberation was performed. The results show that the proposed algorithm has enhanced performance than the conventional algorithms.