A sonar target recognition experiment

This paper presents results of an experiment to determine the feasibility of an active sonar target recognition system. Echo data from 16 targets of maximum dimension 12 inches were obtained in a salt water pool. The target frequency responses in the 15-45 kHz band were used to characterize the targets. Pattern recognition techniques were applied to define and test two recognition methods. The results show that target recognition is feasible with either of the methods tested. 100 percent correct recognition is achieved with 15 parameters when no noise is added to the test echoes. If white noise is added to the test echoes, accuracy is well above 90 percent provided the signal-to-noise ratio is at least 5 dB.