Tracking of geoacoustic parameters using Kalman and particle filters

Abstract

This paper incorporates tracking techniques such as the extended Kalman, unscented Kalman, and particle (PF) filters into geoacoustic inversion problems. This enables spatial and temporal tracking of environmental parameters and their underlying probability densities, making geoacoustic tracking a natural extension to geoacoustic inversion techniques. Water column and seabed properties are tracked in simulation for both vertical (VLA) and horizontal (HLA) line arrays using the three tracking filters. Filter performances are compared in terms of filter efficiencies using the posterior Cramér–Rao lower bound. Tracking capabilities of the geoacoustic filters under slowly and quickly changing environments are studied in terms of divergence statistics. Geoacoustic tracking can provide continuously environmental estimates and their uncertainties using only a fraction of the computational power of classical geoacoustic inversion schemes. Interfilter comparison show that while a high-particle-number PF outperforms the Kalman filters, there are many cases where all three filters perform equally well depending on the inversion configuration (such as the HLA versus VLA and frequency) and the tracked parameters.