Research on Application of Vector Hydrophone onboard an Underwater Glider

Underwater glider achieves floating and diving by changing its buoyancy, and realizes the forward gliding movement by virtue of hydrodynamic force. The use of underwater gliders for long-term, high concealment and large scale detection has become a current research focus. An underwater acoustic glider platform with target detection function was developed by integrating a single vector hydrophone in an existing underwater glider platform. The noises from vector hydrophone and underwater glider platform are test, and the self-noise level of vector hydrophone and the main noise source of underwater glider platform are analyzed. This study has significant guiding significance to reduce the vibration and noise and optimize the operating mode of acoustic system. The detection performance of underwater acoustic glider is analyzed from the experimental data collected in the experiment in the South China Sea in May 2018. The results show that the maximum detection distance of an underwater acoustic glider to detect a test surface vessel sailing at a speed 10 kn is longer than 14 km under good sea state in the deep sea. © 2019, Editorial Board of Acta Armamentarii. All right reserved.