Sea trial of 16-element DFB-FL hydrophone towed array

Lack of suitable towed array has existed as a main problem for further extended use of small underwater mobile platforms such as UUV. In this paper, an ultra-thin fiber-optic hydrophone towed array is developed based on DFB fiber laser, which diameter is only 12mm. And the performance of the towed array of the fiber-optic hydrophone is tested by towboat. The experimental results show that the towed noise of the array is 69dB re. uPa/√Hz@1kHz. In addition, the fiber towed hydrophone array can precisely determine the spatial characteristics of the underwater acoustic field at 6 knots, which verifies the feasibility of the ultra-thin fiber laser hydrophone towed array in UUV and other underwater platforms.