Passive Sonar Detection in Presence of Non Gaussian Noise

In ocean acoustics two important characteristics of the background noise that are variable are the type of noise distribution and the noise power. Signal detectors for a sonar operating in such diverse conditions should be designed for optimum performance, irrespective of the variation in noise statistics. Unlike parametric detectors, Non parametric (NP) detectors maintain a constant level of performance in Gaussian as well as non Gaussian noise and are immune to noise power fluctuation. An analysis of performance of the detectors show that NP detector is better in non Gaussian noise but parametric detector is better in Gaussian noise.