  During a war situation, many times an underwater target motion analysis (TMA)
is performed using bearing-only measurements, obtained from a sensor array,
which is towed by an own-ship with the help of a connected cable. It is well
known that the own-ship is required to perform a manoeuvre in order to make the
system observable and localise the target successfully. During the maneuver, it
is important to know the location of the sensor array with respect to the
own-ship. This paper develops a dynamic model of a cable-sensor array system to
localise the sensor array, which is towed behind a sea-surface vessel. We adopt
a lumped-mass approach to represent the towed cable. The discretized cable
elements are modelled as an interconnected rigid body, kinematically related to
one another. The governing equations are derived by balancing the moments
acting on each node. The derived dynamics are solved simultaneously for all the
nodes to determine the orientation of the cable and sensor array. The position
of the sensor array obtained from this proposed model will further be used by
TMA algorithms to enhance the accuracy of the tracking system.
