Performance comparison of four time-of-flight estimation methods for sonar signals

Performances of four methods of time-of-flight estimation for sonar signals are compared in terms of their bias, standard deviation and complexity: thresholding, curve fitting, m-out-of-N sliding-window, and correlation detection. Whereas correlation detection represents the theoretical optimum, simpler and faster suboptimal methods can offer acceptable performance at much lower cost. The experimental results are in close agreement with the simulations.