High-resolution range and velocity estimation method based on generalized sinusoidal frequency modulation for high-speed underwater vehicle detection

Underwater active target detection is vital for defense systems, requiring accurate detection and estimation of distance and velocity. Sequential transmission is necessary at each beam angle, but divided pulse length leads to range ambiguity. Multi-frequency transmission results in time-bandwidth product losses when bandwidth is divided. To overcome these problem, we propose a novel method using Generalized Sinusoidal Frequency Modulation (GSFM) for rapid target detection, enabling low-correlation pulses between subpulses without bandwidth division. The proposed method allows for rapid updates of the distance and velocity of target by employing GSFM with minimized pulse length. To evaluate our method, we simulated an underwater environment with reverberation. In the simulation, a linear frequency modulation of 0.05 s caused an average distance estimation error of 50 % and a velocity estimation error of 103 % due to limited frequency band. In contrast, GSFM accurately and quickly tracked targets with distance and velocity estimation errors of 10 % and 14 %, respectively, even with pulses of the same length. Furthermore, GSFM provided approximate azimuth information by transmitting highly orthogonal subpulses for each azimuth.