Vertical line hydrophone array

1. A hydrophone deployment system, comprising:

a) a hydrophone assembly, comprising:

i) at least four hydrophone units for converting an acoustic signal to an electrical signal, said hydrophone units being in a parallel, spaced apart spatial relationship with each other; and

ii) at least one spacer element to maintain the hydrophone units fixed in the spatial relationship to each other, wherein said hydrophone units and spacer element are embedded in an encapsulant to form an elongated, flexible body;

b) a container for enclosing the hydrophone assembly body in a coiled configuration;

c) means for ejecting the hydrophone assembly from the container;

d) a signal processing module for processing the electrical signals from the hydrophone units; and

e) a transmitter module for converting said processed electrical signals and transmitting said converted signals to a remote receiver,

wherein each hydrophone unit comprises a central wire of spring steel and a copper wire coiled around said central wire of spring steel, said copper wire being coated with a layer of polyvinylidene difluoride, and said hydrophone unit further comprising a layer of conductive silver ink deposited on the polyvinylidene difluoride-coated copper wire.

2. The hydrophone deployment system of claim 1 further including a float, a tether extending from the float to a first end of the hydrophone assembly, and a weight attached to second end of the hydrophone assembly.

3. The hydrophone deployment system of claim 1 wherein the tether includes a conductive wire for conveying the processed electrical signals from the signal processing module to the transmitter module.

4. The hydrophone deployment system of claim 1 wherein the signal processing module determines a virtual pressure at a single point based on a summation of electrical signals received from the hydrophone units and determines a cross-axis pressure gradient based on differences between electrical signals of opposing hydrophone units.

5. The hydrophone deployment system of claim 1 wherein the signal processing module amplifies the electrical signals from the hydrophone units, calculates differences between electrical signals of opposing hydrophone units, and calculates sums of the electrical signals of the hydrophone units.

6. The hydrophone deployment system of claim 5 wherein the signal processing module applies 1/f functions to the differences and sums, where f is frequency, and provides greater amplification to lower frequency signals than higher frequency signals as part of a weighting function.

7. The hydrophone deployment system of claim 1 wherein the hydrophone units have a length of from about 12λ to about 18λ, wherein λ is the wavelength of a target acoustic signal.

8. The hydrophone deployment system of claim 1 wherein the hydrophone units are spaced apart from each other within the assembly by a distance of from about λ/4 to about λ/20, wherein λ is the wavelength of a target acoustic signal.

9. The hydrophone deployment system of claim 1 wherein the encapsulant has a density-sound speed product when cured approximately equal to that of seawater.