Underwater ultra-low frequency seismic source.

The ultra-low frequency band (2-8 Hz) is of interest for geophysical research due to advances in the field of full waveform inversion and elastic impedance measurements. Generating sound in the ultra-low frequency range is a difficult task. A powerful source with an ultra-low frequency should be able to displace hundreds of liters of water per cycle. The amplitude of internal pressure fluctuations is comparable to the difference in buoyancy forces on the radiation aperture, and acoustic-gravitational effects are part of its hydrodynamics. The source described in this article has a pneumatically driven bubble resonator and provides a volume displacement and radiation area that are larger than other known prototypes. The article examines the acoustic physics of a large underwater bubble resonator and a seismic bubble source with an internal Helmholtz resonator. A finite element analysis of the transition of near-field hydrodynamics to a pressure wave is included, as well as a treatment of transition loss and broadband radiation methods. The study concludes with the creation and testing of an ultra-low frequency seismic source. Experiments carried out at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution showed that the prototype has a source level high enough for full waveform inversion in geophysical surveys.

Equations for normal-mode statistics of sound scattering by a rough elastic boundary in an underwater waveguide, including backscattering.

Underwater sound scattering by a rough sea surface, ice, or a rough elastic bottom is studied. The study includes both the scattering from the rough boundary and the elastic effects in the solid layer. A coupled mode matrix is approximated by a linear function of one random perturbation parameter such as the ice-thickness or a perturbation of the surface position. A full two-way coupled mode solution is used to derive the stochastic differential equation for the second order statistics in a Markov approximation.

Entropy rate defined by internal wave scattering in long-range propagation.

The reduction of information capacity of the ocean sound channel due to scattering by internal waves is a potential problem for acoustic communication, navigation, and remote sensing over long ranges. In spite of recent progress in research on acoustic signal scattering by random internal waves and the fact that random internal waves are ubiquitous in the world oceans, there is no clear understanding of how these waves influence data communication performance. The entropy decrease resulting from scattering by internal waves is an important measure of information loss. Here a rigorous calculation of the entropy is carried out using second moment transport theory equations with random sound-speed perturbations obeying the Garrett-Munk internal-wave model. It is shown that full-wave rate of entropy is of the same order of magnitude as the Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy and Lyapunov exponents for the relevant ray trajectories. The correspondence between full-wave and ray entropies suggests a correspondence between full-wave scattering and ray chaos near statistical saturation. The relatively small level of entropy rate during propagation through the random internal-wave field shows that scattering by internal waves is likely not an essential limitation for data rate and channel capacity.

Per-survivor processing for underwater acoustic communications with direct-sequence spread spectrum.

This paper proposes a receiver for direct-sequence spread spectrum transmissions in underwater acoustic channels, which combines a per-survivor processing (PSP) structure with sparse channel estimation. Specifically, the PSP structure establishes the trellis on the symbol level to render a small to moderate number of states, thus reducing the computational complexity. Meanwhile, the sparse channel estimation is performed on the chip level, where the orthogonal matching pursuit algorithm is used and a two-dimensional grid of path delay and Doppler scaling factor is incorporated in the dictionary construction. The effective combination of the PSP detection and sparse channel estimation achieves a good tradeoff between performance and complexity. Simulation and experiment results show that the proposed receiver outperforms the conventional RAKE receiver considerably, and most importantly, the proposed PSP receiver with an exact wideband dictionary maintains an excellent performance even for challenging underwater acoustic channels with large Doppler disparities on different paths.

Statistics of low-frequency normal-mode amplitudes in an ocean with random sound-speed perturbations: shallow-water environments.

Second- and fourth-moment mode-amplitude statistics for low-frequency ocean sound propagation through random sound-speed perturbations in a shallow-water environment are investigated using Monte Carlo simulations and a transport theory for the cross-mode coherence matrix. The acoustic observables of mean and mean square intensity are presented and the importance of adiabatic effects and cross-mode coherence decay are emphasized. Using frequencies of 200 and 400 Hz, transport theory is compared with Monte Carlo simulations in a canonical shallow-water environment representative of the summer Mid-Atlantic Bight. Except for ranges less than a horizontal coherence length of the sound structure, the intensity moments from the two calculations are in good agreement. Corrections for the short range behavior are presented. For these frequencies the computed mode coupling rates are extremely small, and the propagation is strongly adiabatic with a rapid decay of cross-mode coherence. Coupling effects are predicted to be important at kilohertz frequencies. Decay of cross-mode coherence has important implications for acoustic interactions with nonlinear internal waves: For the case in which the acoustic path is not at glancing incidence with a nonlinear internal-wave front, adiabatic phase randomizing effects lead to a significantly reduced influence of the nonlinear waves on both mean and mean square intensity.

Physically constrained maximum likelihood mode filtering.

Mode filtering is most commonly implemented using the sampled mode shapes or pseudoinverse algorithms. Buck et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 103, 1813-1824 (1998)] placed these techniques in the context of a broader maximum a posteriori (MAP) framework. However, the MAP algorithm requires that the signal and noise statistics be known a priori. Adaptive array processing algorithms are candidates for improving performance without the need for a priori signal and noise statistics. A variant of the physically constrained, maximum likelihood (PCML) algorithm [A. L. Kraay and A. B. Baggeroer, IEEE Trans. Signal Process. 55, 4048-4063 (2007)] is developed for mode filtering that achieves the same performance as the MAP mode filter yet does not need a priori knowledge of the signal and noise statistics. The central innovation of this adaptive mode filter is that the received signal's sample covariance matrix, as estimated by the algorithm, is constrained to be that which can be physically realized given a modal propagation model and an appropriate noise model. Shallow water simulation results are presented showing the benefit of using the PCML method in adaptive mode filtering.

Statistics of normal mode amplitudes in an ocean with random sound-speed perturbations: cross-mode coherence and mean intensity.

In this paper Creamer's [(1996). J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 99, 2825-2838] transport equation for the mode amplitude coherence matrix resulting from coupled mode propagation through random fields of internal waves is examined in more detail. It is shown that the mode energy equations are approximately independent of the cross mode coherences, and that cross mode coherences and mode energy can evolve over very similar range scales. The decay of cross mode coherence depends on the relative mode phase randomization caused by coupling and adiabatic effects, each of which can be quantified by the theory. This behavior has a dramatic effect on the acoustic field second moments like mean intensity. Comparing estimates of the coherence matrix and mean intensity from Monte Carlo simulation, and the transport equations, good agreement is demonstrated for a 100-Hz deep-water example.

Modal processing for acoustic communications in shallow water experiment.

Acoustical array data from the Shallow Water Acoustics experiment was processed to show the feasibility of broadband mode decomposition as a preprocessing method to reduce the effective channel delay spread and concentrate received signal energy in a small number of independent channels. The data were collected by a vertical array designed at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Phase-shift Keying (PSK) m-sequence modulated signals with different carrier frequencies were transmitted at a distance 19.2 km from the array. Even during a strong internal waves activity a low bit error rate was achieved.

Underwater tunable organ-pipe sound source.

A highly efficient frequency-controlled sound source based on a tunable high-Q underwater acoustic resonator is described. The required spectrum width was achieved by transmitting a linear frequency-modulated signal and simultaneously tuning the resonance frequency, keeping the sound source in resonance at the instantaneous frequency of the signal transmitted. Such sound sources have applications in ocean-acoustic tomography and deep-penetration seismic tomography. Mathematical analysis and numerical simulation show the Helmholtz resonator's ability for instant resonant frequency switching and quick adjustment of its resonant frequency to the instantaneous frequency signal. The concept of a quick frequency adjustment filter is considered. The discussion includes the simplest lumped resonant source as well as the complicated distributed system of a tunable organ pipe. A numerical model of the tunable organ pipe is shown to have a form similar to a transmission line segment. This provides a general form for the principal results, which can be applied to tunable resonators of a different physical nature. The numerical simulation shows that the "state-switched" concept also works in the high-Q tunable organ pipe, and the speed of frequency sweeping in a high-Q tunable organ pipe is analyzed. The simulation results were applied to a projector design for ocean-acoustic tomography.