An underwater two-dimensional DOA estimation algorithm based on double parallel linear arrays

There is an increasing demand for underwater collaborative operations using a cluster of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV). For underwater cluster operations, the underwater positioning of AUV is very important. At present, the working mode of acoustic positioning is usually adopted for AUV, and the long and short baseline arrays are used to estimate the two-dimensional DOA of underwater targets. However, for small-sized AUVs, the array size is limited by carrier volume and transducer size. The accuracy of DOA estimation under multi-source conditions is not high. In this paper, a low-power platform is designed, and the double parallel linear arrays and propagator method are used to perform two-dimensional DOA estimation for multi-source targets. Moreover, by combining signal communication and acoustic positioning, the high-frequency communication signals are used as signal sources for positioning to achieve automatic pairing of estimated angles in the multi-source environment, and so, a better DOA estimation effect can be obtained when an array with limited size is deployed on a small-sized AUV. The simulation results verify the effectiveness of the method.