ABSTRACT
This chapter quantifies the degradation of source range accuracy as results from uncertainty in the relative heading or placement of a subarray from its nominal direction or position. It demonstrates that small random unbiased fluctuations in the heading have an impact on the wavefront curvature ranging estimates as a bias in addition to the noted variance. The derived bias and variance results are limited in accuracy by the assumption that the statistical characteristics of the heading data distributions have negligible contributions that defined by the Taylor expansion. The bias and variance for the range estimates are developed for noncollinear and unequally separated subarrays whose acoustic centers are subjected to heading fluctuations. The generalized bias and variance results are reduced to certain specific cases of interest. Using the generalized results, several figures are given to depict the size and variation in bias and variance as a function of the design elements that define those statistical measures.
