Optimal source placement for point coverage in active multistatic sonar networks

The allocation of underwater sensors for tracking, localization, and surveillance purposes is a fundamental problem in anti-submarine warfare. Inexpensive passive receivers have been heavily utilized in recent years; however, modern submarines are increasingly quiet and difficult to detect with receivers alone. Recently, the idea of deploying noncollocated sources and receivers has emerged as a promising alternative to purely passive sensor fields and to traditional sonar fields composed of collocated sources and receivers. Such a multistatic sonar network carries a number of advantages, but it also brings increased system complexity resulting from its unusual coverage patterns. In this work, we study the problem of optimally positioning active multistatic sonar sources for a point coverage application where all receivers and points of interest are fixed and stationary. Using a definite range sensor model, we formulate exact methods and approximation algorithms for this problem and compare these algorithms via computational experiments. We also examine the performance of these algorithms on a discrete approximation of a continuous area coverage problem and find that they offer a significant improvement over two types of random sensor deployment.