ACTIVE SONAR DETECTION IN MULTIPATH - A NEW BISPECTRAL ANALYSIS APPROACH

Detecting active sonar returns in multipath media is a central underwa ter signal processing problem. This paper studies a new approach to ac tive sonar detection using bispectral analysis of sonar data. Its sens itivity to non-stationarities is used to develop a threshold detector that can be applied to broad classes of signals and noise. Precise sta tistical descriptions of the underwater medium and noise are not requi red. Theoretical analyses predicting its performance as a function of signal-to-noise ratio and time-bandwidth product are presented. Comput er simulation experiments verify the results and show that its perform ance compares favorably to that of conventional detectors.