Search

Actual maritime exercise for improving the capability of submarine sonar operator leads to a lot of cost and constraints. Sonar simulator maximizes the capability of sonar operator and training effect by solving these problems and simulating a realistic battlefield environment. In this study, a passive sonar simulator algorithm is suggested, where the simulator is divided into three modules: maneuvering module, noise source module, and sound propagation module. Maneuvering module is implemented in three-dimensional coordinate system and time interval is set as the rate of vessel changing course. Noise source module consists of target noise, ocean ambient noise, and self noise. Target noise is divided into modulated/unmodulated and narrowband/broadband signals as their frequency characteristics, and they are applied to ship radiated noise level depending on the vessel tonnage and velocity. Ocean ambient noise is simulated depending on the wind noise considering the waveguide effect and other ambient noise. Self noise is also simulated for flow noise and insertion loss of sonar-dome. The sound propagation module is based on ray propagation, where summation of amplitude, phase, and time delay for each eigen-ray is multiplied by target noise in the frequency domain. Finally, simulated results based on various scenarios are in good agreement with generated noise in the real ocean.