Narrow Results

For sound propagation in a shallow water waveguide, a dedispersion transform which can remove the dispersive effect of signal is described in this paper. The transform is a modified Fourier transform with two variables: translation and dispersion. Dispersive effect of signal for normal modes can be removed when these two variables match to real parameters. The validity of the present approach is verified in simulation and real data processing.

A formula for the instantaneous phase of the cross-correlation function of two different modes using the relationship between the horizontal wavenumber difference and frequency described by the waveguide invariant is deduced in this paper. Based on the formula, a waveguide-invariant-based warping operator suitable for both reflected and refracted modes in shallow water at low frequency is presented, providing an effective tool to filter the cross-correlation function of modes from the signal autocorrelation function. Using the phase of the filtered cross-correlation component in the frequency domain, a passive source ranging method on a single hydrophone is proposed. Simulated and experimental data using impulsive signals verify the validity of the derived warping operator and source ranging method.

Due to the dispersion of normal modes in shallow water, there exist regular striations on the interference spectrogram in space-frequency domain. Based on the range-frequency domain striations, waveguide invariant can be estimated with the prior knowledge of source range. Utilizing striations along the array, Rouseff and Zurk [J. Acoust. Soc. Amer.130 (2011) EL76–EL81] proposed the striation-based beamforming (SBF), which shows a theoretical possibility to estimate waveguide invariant that is independent of source range. To make this beamforming technique more practical, its application requirements and performance limitation should be defined. These two issues are researched with the phase and amplitude relationships deduced by the frequency-shift compensation theory. It shows the source whose spectrum varies slowly and received signals that contain the complete information of transmission time are keys for applying SBF to real work. The azimuth limitation can lead to the degradation of array gain and distortion of interference structure. Matching parameters of waveguide invariant and source range, respectively, two modified striation-based beamformers are developed to eliminate the azimuth limitation. Simulation and experimental results are presented.

The deep-water sound multipath arrivals and interference striation patterns not only vary with range and depth but also with frequency. The first two cases can be solved using a ray-mode method in the high-frequency limit. However, this method may cause unsatisfactory results in treating low-frequency sounds (as low as tens of Hertz) because of the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) high-frequency approximation assumption. To overcome this problem, the authors exploited phase information to modify the ray parameters, such as the propagation range, the time delay, and the group velocity. Following that, a waveguide invariant (WI) expression was derived to address low-frequency sound interference problems. Numerical investigations demonstrated that the physical mechanism of the frequency dependence of the multipath arrivals and interference striation patterns could be better understood using this modified ray-mode method. In addition, the influence of bottom sound speed on multipath interference structures is also considered.