Discrimination Between Broadband Underwater Target Echo and Reverberation Based on Signal Spectral Flatness Feature

Reverberation is the major interference of active detection, discrimination between target echo and reverberation is difficult when the reverberation is very strong. For the distinguishing of underwater target echo with strong interference, the modulation feature of echo and reverberation spectrum are characterized by signal spectral flatness measure, and the relationship between signal spectral flatness and target physical properties are theoretically formed. A method of discrimination between broadband underwater target echo and reverberation that based on signal spectral flatness characteristics difference is proposed and studied. Sea experiment results of complex underwater target broadband acoustic scattering have shown that signal spectral flatness characteristics of underwater target broadband echo and reverberation have obvious differences. Target echo and reverberation can be well distinguished using the proposed method.