Performance evaluation of a new robust detector for sonar signals

A novel Spectrum Balancing Detector (SBD) for sonar signals is introduced. The detector operates on quadrature signals as well as their Hilbert transforms using cross multiplicative structure in contrast to the square law detector which simply adds up the two components after a squaring operation. It has the special feature of forming an automatic notch around reverberation and indicating the sense of direction of motion of the target. The performance of the SB detector is evaluated on the basis of minimum detectable level of signals and it is shown that the detector is at least as robust as square law detector. Theoretical and experimental results are also presented to establish the properties of the SB detector.