Iterative technique for ambient‐noise horizontal‐directionality estimation from towed line‐array data

A new method of estimating noise‐field horizontal directionality from towed line‐array data is presented. The method utilizes iterative techniques to estimate the time‐averaged noise‐field horizontal directionality by convolving the estimate with the calculated beam pattern and comparing the results with the measured beam output data. The estimate is appropriately changed until the pooled standard deviation for the differences between the calculated and the measured beam outputs is less than some arbitrarily chosen small value. The results are given for both stationary and nonstationary noise fields.