Resolution of Left-Right Ambiguity for Underwater Bearing-Only Tracking

During bearing-only tracking (BOT) with a towed array sensor, the array can sense the bearing angle of the target but is unable to differentiate whether the target is on the left or the right side of the array. Thus, the traditional tracking algorithm generates tracks on both sides of the array, which creates difficulties when interception is required. In this article, we propose a method based on the likelihood of measurement, which, along with the estimators, can resolve left-right ambiguity (L-R ambiguity) and track the target. The proposed method is implemented for a target following a constant velocity model and a coordinated turn (CT) model. The tracking results are compared in terms of the root-mean-square error (RMSE) in position and velocity, bias norm, percentage of track loss, the relative execution time, and flop counts. We also provide the convergence analysis of the proposed method, which indicates that it converges on the target’s trajectory, effectively resolving the L-R ambiguity. We additionally examine the robustness of the proposed method with respect to initial uncertainty in terms of the average RMSE in position and velocity, as well as the track loss percentage.