A fast estimation of sonar cross section of acoustically large and complex underwater targets using a deterministic scattering center model

In this paper, a fast method is proposed to estimate the sonar cross section of acoustically large and complex underwater targets such as submarines and torpedoes. The proposed method is based on a deterministic scattering center model which constructs scattering center database by using a combining method of physical optics and geometric optics and then reconstructs sonar cross section patterns from that database with a polynomial interpolation with respect to the incident angle. The parametric studies to find appropriate intervals of the reference incident angle are systematically carried out for simple targets such as a flat square plate and an orthogonal dihedral. Moreover, to validate the proposed method, sonar cross sections of real-like targets such as a pressure hull and an idealized submarine are calculated. The comparisons show that the results by the proposed method are in good agreement with those by the direct calculation.