Near-field/far-field source localization in ocean with an acoustic vector sensor array using polynomial rooting

In this paper, we consider the problem of three-dimensional (3D - azimuth, elevation/depth and range) localization of a single acoustic source using an array of acoustic vector sensors (AVS). Localization algorithms such as multiple signal classification (MUSIC) require a 3D search over the location parameter space which is computationally expensive. Several methods have been proposed based on arrays of acoustic pressure sensors (APS) [1], [2] which simplified this search to polynomial rooting (PR) combined with a 2D search in the range-elevation/depth space. However, the computational complexity remains high for such methods since 2D search is involved. We present a method to localize a source with an array of AVS via a decoupled estimation of azimuth, and a 1D range search combined with PR to estimate the elevation/depth. This is computationally simpler than, and performs as well as PR with 2D searching and 3D MUSIC.