Ray-based blind deconvolution of shipping sources using multiple beams separated by alternating projection

This article presents a method for improving the performance of the ray-based blind deconvolution (RBD) algorithm, which was first proposed by Sabra, Song, and Dowling [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 127(2), EL42–EL47 (2010)]. In order to retrieve the channel impulse response (CIR), the original RBD algorithm uses the source signal phase from a selected single beam output. However, when the impinging multipath signals have low coherence, the channel estimate from a selected beam may not show all paths correctly. In this research, the maximum likelihood estimator, which is called the alternating projection, is applied to separate multipath signals. Then the multiple CIRs obtained from those separated signals are coherently combined. This results in more robust detection of existing multipaths. The performance of the proposed method is verified using Noise09 sea experiment data, where the proposed method better resolves the multipath arrival structure.