Contribution
Design of a Cost Function for the Evaluation of Different SONAR Modes
* Presenting author
Abstract:
A SONAR system can be operated in various configurations. The simplest mode uses just one projector and one hydrophone, which is called SISO (single input single output) processing. More sophisticated modes use multiple projectors or hydrophones. This is referred to as a MIMO (multiple input multiple output) system. The different modes have advantages and disadvantages, for example in terms of hardware and software requirements as well as angular resolution. The choice of transmission sequences also plays an important role. With all these different SONAR modes, it is difficult to evaluate and compare their performance. This is usually done visually by analyzing the resulting plan position indicator (PPI) plot. To improve the objectivity, an objective measure to evaluate different SONAR modes is developed in this contribution. This is done by establishing a cost function that considers different scenarios and targets in a harbor environment. The calculation is implemented in a real-time framework. For the evaluation, a realistic simulation of a harbor environment is used, in which the different SONAR modes are simulated and the respective cost functions are calculated. This allows a fair and reliable evaluation and comparison of the different modes.