Modelling of Underwater Acoustic Networks for Source Localization in Arbitrary Bounded Reservoirs

In this paper, a non-statistical MATLAB-based software model for a bounded shallow underwater acoustic network comprising an arbitrary number of transmitters, receivers and the water channel is presented. The model is constructed to highlight the non-ideal behavior of the underwater channel including attenuation, reflections, multipath effects, noise and phase-frequency shifts. To highlight the utility of the model, a Time-Difference-Of-Arrival (TDOA) algorithm to locate an underwater sound source using a hydrophone array is tested on the model and the received signals are observed to show realistic results as if they have actually propagated through the water channel. Such a network model can be used to test localization algorithms for any acoustic source, without the need to gather real data in the specific water reservoir.