An Autonomous Hydrophone Position Locating and Target Tracking System

The present invention relates to an autonomous hydrophone position locating and tracking system, and more particularly to a distributed array of buoy tethered autonomous hydrophone position locating apparatuses, where each such apparatus further includes a plurality of water velocity sensors deployed at selected depths along a cable that is connected at one end to a top side buoy that obtains buoy surface position data via a satellite based GPS link, and that is also connected at the other end to a bottom residing base unit that contains a hydrophone and also electronic signal processing components that receive the water velocity gradient data from the velocity sensors and the GPS position data from the surface buoy, and employs the data to determine the exact bottom location of that particular hydrophone which is then relayed to a satellite via the RF capable buoy antenna. Collectively the multi-hydrophone configuration provides an autonomous underwater hydrophone position locating and target tracking system that enables highly accurate position locating of the tracked objects. The system can be easily and quickly deployed to provide efficient underwater vehicle tracking. In addition, the system can be used to provide forward area anyplace-anytime test and evaluation range deployment capabilities.