Research on UUV Navigation Attitude and Its Influence on DOA Estimation by Using a Mid-Frequency Active Sonar

Unmanned undersea vehicle (UUV) is a force multiplier in modern naval warfare. The active sonar carried on the UUV is a tool that uses sound waves to complete tasks such as detection and localization. It is an indispensable core equipment in ocean exploration activities and target detection and identification processes. However, the navigation attitude of the UUV can significantly affect the performance of the active sonar it is equipped with. This paper quantitatively analyzed the influence of the navigation attitude of UUV on the target orientation estimation accuracy of the active sonar it carries through a lake experiment. Test data show that the navigation attitude of UUV is closely related to the target orientation estimated by the active sonar. Therefore, in this paper, the estimation results of the active sonar are corrected by using the UUV navigation attitude. By comparing the estimated target direction before and after correction with the true target direction, it can be concluded that incorporating UUV navigation posture into active sonar processing can significantly improve the accuracy of target direction estimation. This study provides an important reference for the optimal design of UUV and the data processing of active sonar reception.