Optimal Operating Depth Search for Active Towed Array Sonar using Simulated Annealing

In an active towed array sonar, it is important to find the optimal operation depth. Generally, the optimal depth can be chosen via numerical simulations for all sonar depths and this imposes great burdens of time and cost. In this paper, an efficient approach is proposed to find the optimal depth using the optimisation technique. First, the sonar performance function is newly defined as a measure of how well the active sonar might perform. This function depends on the properties of the ocean environment and the positions of sonar and underwater target. Then, the simulated annealing to find an optimal solution for maximising sonar performance is used. The optimised depth agrees well with the depth obtained from direct searching for all depths of source and receiver combinations, but its computational time is largely reduced.