A PIECEWISE MATCHED-FIELD TRACKING ALGORITHM

Matched-field tracking (MFT) algorithms have been successfully applied to both simulated and measured data to determine the most likely posi tions of a sound source that is localized ambiguously by a matched-fie ld processing (MFP) system. They have been used to track sources movin g linearly or on a circular path at constant speed and heading. The in put to the trackers is a set of ambiguity surfaces, contiguous in time , generated by MFP. These algorithms assume that the track start and e nd times are known a priori; this restriction is removed in the piecew ise MFT algorithm (PTA). The PTA was applied to narrow-band measured d ata collected during the PACIFIC SHELF 93 trial to successfully identi fy the significant source track segments.