For an active sonar, the reverberation is the main interference in shallow water, and the reverberation suppression is a complicated problem in the sonar signal processing, especially when the sonar carrier moves with a certain velocity to cause the space-time coupling in the reverberation. The space-time adaptive processing (STAP) is an effective way to solve this problem, with the implicit compensation for the motional platform and it allows to obtain the most optimal performance for the reverberation suppression in the theory. This paper reviews the reverberation suppression and target detection methods for the traditional active sonar. By analyzing the difference between the sonar and the radar, the space-time adaptive processing model suitable for a moving sonar is proposed. Based on this model, the design of the robust space-time adaptive detection method is discussed. At last, the paper summarizes the prospects of the reverberation suppression and target detection methods of the moving sonar.

active sonar  /  reverberation suppression  /  target detection  /  space time adaptive processing