In order to reduce the computational complexity of the fourth order cumulants based vector hydrophone acoustic source location algorithm and improve its positioning accuracy，a single vector hydrophone acoustic source location algorithm based on fourth order moments is proposed.In this proposed algorithm，the numbers of single vector hydrophone array and source are virtually expanded based on the nature of fourth order moments to obtain more multi acoustic source location information，the redundancy and computation loads are reduced by using extract effective array element method，and the multi acoustic source locations can be obtained by using the search peak.The theoretical analyses and experimental results show that， the proposed algorithm can effectively reduce the computational load, improve the positioning accuracy and overcome the shortage of the higher order cumulants based vector hydrophone source location algorithm.
