System and processor for real-time extraction of ocean bottom properties

摘要

A system for characterizing ocean bottom properties in real-time by exploiting the multipath structure of reverberation to extract values for the bottom loss and the bottom scattering coefficient. The system obtains environmental and navigational data and synchronizes the data with sonar state data and acoustic beam data to produce an input data stream to an extraction processor. The extraction processor utilizes a digital signal processing means to produce a reverberation energy envelope from the acoustic beam data and time correlate the reverberation energy envelope with the environmental, navigational, and sonar state data. A general purpose computer monitors the reverberation envelope and the environmental, navigational, and sonar state data for change and instructs a modeling processor to construct a new eigenray propagation model and a new reference reverberation model if any changes occur in the data that results in a change to the previously constructed eigenray propagation or reference reverberation models. A pair of local extraction processors perform the extraction of the bottom loss and the bottom scattering coefficient by performing a probe pulse extraction algorithm and a reverberation decay algorithm, respectively.