Correlation of underwater acoustic signals simultaneously received by omnidirectional and directional means

A comparison of experimental data on the spatial correlation between acoustic signals simultaneously received by an omnidirectional hydrophone and a directional vertical array is carried out. The spatial correlation was measured between the signals received at different distances in a deep ocean. The points of reception were positioned in two convergence zones along the path of sound propagation with a point-to-point distance of about 64 km. Pseudonoise signals were emitted in the frequency range (0.8–2.0) kHz and received by a vertical array, whose beam had a width of ∼2°. Concurrently, multipath signals received with the central hydrophone of the array were recorded. Signals in the first and second convergence zones were received at different times. Nevertheless, in the case of the directional reception, the coefficients of spatial correlation between such signals appeared to be as high as 0.64–0.74 even under the conditions of incomplete resolution of signals in the angle of arrival in the vertical plane. At the same time, in the case of omnidirectional reception, the coefficients of spatial correlation were below 0.32.     

Measuring the characteristics of backscattering of sound on a rough surface in the near-field zone of a phased array

The paper presents the results of an experiment on measuring the characteristics of backscattering of sound waves by a rough surface. Measurements were conducted in the near zone of a vertical array, which made it possible with a high degree of accuracy to control the propagation conditions and the angles of incidence of an acoustic wave onto the surface. Tonal signals were emitted in a constant mode at frequencies of 0.5–3.5 kHz. The Doppler spectrum of the scattered signal was analyzed in detail, the spectral component corresponding to Bragg scattering was isolated, and the width of this component was determined. The possibilities of calculating the scattered field using two forms of the sea state spectrum are studied and compared: the two-dimensional spatiotemporal sea state spectrum, which was measured optically, and the conventional one-dimensional time spectrum, measured with a single surveying mark.     

Impact of ocean variability on coherent underwater acoustic communications during the Kauai [corrected] experiment (KauaiEx)

During the July 2003 acoustic communications experiment conducted in 100 m deep water off the western side of Kauai, Hawaii, a 10 s binary phase shift keying signal with a symbol rate of 4 kilosymbol/s was transmitted every 30 min for 27 h from a bottom moored source at 12 kHz center frequency to a 16 element vertical array spanning the water column at about 3 km range. The communications signals are demodulated by time reversal multichannel combining followed by a single channel decision feedback equalizer using two subsets of array elements whose channel characteristics appear distinct: (1) top 10 and (2) bottom 4 elements. Due to rapid channel variations, continuous channel updates along with Doppler tracking are required prior to time reversal combining. This is especially true for the top 10 elements where the received acoustic field involves significant interaction with the dynamic ocean surface. The resulting communications performance in terms of output signal-to-noise ratio exhibits significant change over the 27 h transmission duration. This is particularly evident as the water column changes from well-mixed to a downward refracting environment.     

南中国海存在孤立子内波条件下的声场时间相关半径

在动态的海洋环境中,由于数据向量和拷贝场之间的失配,匹配场处理器的性能会发生退化。数据向量的时间相关半径是这种退化的一种量度。通过2001年ASIAEX南海实验中垂直阵上水听器接收到的声场数据求取了400 Hz窄带信号的声场时间相关。从实验数据处理结果观察到,伴随着传播路径上非线性内波的进入,声场的时间相关半径减小。同时利用一个二维的平流冻结海洋模型和传播路径上三个温度链的温度数据对声场进行了数值仿真,分析了不同频率下的声场时间相关半径。结果表明:实验结果与仿真的400 Hz信号的声场时间相关较为一致。可见,在时变的海洋环境下,声信道中存在孤立子内波将会使声场的时间相关半径大大缩短。      

Coherent acoustic communication in a tidal estuary with busy shipping traffic

High-rate acoustic communication experiments were conducted in a dynamic estuarine environment. Two current profilers deployed in a shipping lane were interfaced with acoustic modems, which modulated and transmitted the sensor readings every 200 s over a period of four days. QPSK modulation was employed at a raw data rate of 8 kbits on a 12-kHz carrier. Two 16-element hydrophone arrays, one horizontal and one vertical, were deployed near the shore. A multichannel decision-feedback equalizer was used to demodulate the modem signals received on both arrays. Long-term statistical analysis reveals the effects of the tidal cycle, subsea unit location, attenuation by the wake of passing vessels, and high levels of ship-generated noise on the fidelity of the communication links. The use of receiver arrays enables vast improvement in the overall reliability of data delivery compared with a single-receiver system, with performance depending strongly on array orientation. The vertical array offers the best performance overall, although the horizontal array proves more robust against shipping noise. Spatial coherence estimates, variation of array aperture, and inspection of array angular responses point to adaptive beamforming and coherent combining as the chief mechanisms of array gain.     

Tracking sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) dive profiles using a towed passive acoustic array

A passive acoustic method is presented for tracking sperm whale dive profiles, using two or three hydrophones deployed as either a vertical or large-aperture towed array. The relative arrival times between the direct and surface-reflected acoustic paths are used to obtain the ranges and depths of animals with respect to the array, provided that the hydrophone depths are independently measured. Besides reducing the number of hydrophones required, exploiting surface reflections simplifies automation of the data processing. Experimental results are shown from 2002 and 2003 cruises in the Gulf of Mexico for two different towed array deployments. The 2002 deployment consisted of two short-aperture towed arrays separated by 170 m, while the 2003 deployment placed an autonomous acoustic recorder in tandem with a short-aperture towed array, and used ship noise to time-align the acoustic data. The resulting dive profiles were independently checked using single-hydrophone localizations, whenever multipath reflections from the ocean bottom could be exploited to effectively create a large-aperture vertical array. This technique may have applications for basic research and for real-time mitigation for seismic airgun surveys.     

基于密集波分复用技术的Bragg光栅水听器

论述了用Bragg光栅制作水听器的原理和意义,利用光纤通信的密集波分技术,实现声压信号动态解调.采用压力增敏材料对Bragg光栅封装来增加其响应灵敏度,为避免温度变化引起光栅交叉敏感,在室温23±1℃条件下进行试验,给出实验结果.实验表明:基元水听器的频率响应平坦度好,信号输出稳定.同时采用密集波分技术动态解调声信号方案是可行的.     

A spiral wave front beacon for underwater navigation: transducer prototypes and testing

Transducers for acoustic beacons which can produce outgoing signals with wave fronts whose horizontal cross sections are circular or spiral are studied experimentally. A remote hydrophone is used to determine its aspect relative to the transducers by comparing the phase of the circular signal to the phase of the spiral signal. The transducers for a "physical-spiral" beacon are made by forming a strip of 1-3 piezocomposite transducer material around either a circular or spiral backing. A "phased-spiral" beacon is made from an array of transducer elements which can be driven either in phase or staggered out of phase so as to produce signals with either a circular or spiral wave front. Measurements are made to study outgoing signals and their usefulness in determining aspect angle. Vertical beam width is also examined and phase corrections applied when the hydrophone is out of the horizontal plane of the beacon. While numerical simulations indicate that the discontinuity in the physical-spiral beacon introduces errors into the measured phase, damping observed at the ends of the piezocomposite material is a more significant source of error. This damping is also reflected in laser Doppler vibrometer measurements of the transducer's surface velocity.     

岛礁海域海洋环境噪声垂直分布和垂直指向性

依据岛礁海域复杂海底地形、海试期间航船分布和实测风速数据,应用射线声传播理论,建立岛礁海域海洋环境噪声三维模型。在海试岛礁海域深海声道条件下,采用射线3D算法,仿真计算了32元垂直测量阵所处265~885 m负声速梯度深度范围内1 kHz风关和50 Hz远处航船海洋环境噪声级垂直分布,以及50 Hz航船海洋环境噪声垂直指向性,并与实测分析进行比较。结果表明,仿真结果与海试实测数据一致性良好。在本例海底起伏、接收点周边存在众多岛礁和海底山的三维环境中,1 kHz风关海洋环境噪声级随深度分布较近于均匀;西南方向较远处航道区海域海底较平坦,航道区至接收阵为缓斜坡海底,50 Hz远处航船海洋环境噪声级随深度有所增加,其噪声垂直指向性无明显水平凹槽。文中建立的岛礁海域海洋环境噪声三维模型,可较好地表征本例岛礁复杂地形海底起伏海域的风关和航船海洋环境噪声级的垂直分布、及航船环境噪声的垂直指向性,实测和仿真的岛礁海域海洋环境噪声相关数据,可供实际应用及相关研究参考。      

Acoustic properties of humpback whale songs

A vertical array of five hydrophones was used to measure the acoustic field in the vertical plane of singing humpback whales. Once a singer was located, two swimmers with snorkel gear were deployed to determine the orientation of the whale and position the boat so that the array could be deployed in front of the whale at a minimum standoff distance of at least 10 m. The spacing of the hydrophones was 7 m with the deepest hydrophone deployed at a depth of 35 m. An eight-channel TASCAM recorder with a bandwidth of 24 kHz was used to record the hydrophone signals. The location (distance and depth) of the singer was determined by computing the time of arrival differences between the hydrophone signals. The maximum source level varied between individual units in a song, with values between 151 and 173 dB re 1 microPa. One of the purposes of this study was to estimate potential sound exposure of nearby conspecifics. The acoustic field determined by considering the relative intensity of higher frequency harmonics in the signals indicated that the sounds are projected in the horizontal direction despite the singer being canted head downward anywhere from about 25 degrees to 90 degrees. High-frequency harmonics extended beyond 24 kHz, suggesting that humpback whales may have an upper frequency limit of hearing as high as 24 kHz.     

光纤Bragg光栅水听器探头的特性及实验研究

论述了FBG水听器探头基元——光纤Bragg光栅(FBG)的传感特性,分析了FBG的耦合系数、反射率、反射带宽和栅长对FBG水听器传感特性的影响。通过改进FBG水听器探头封装结构,增加了其压力敏感系数。并将实验结果与标准水听器(压电型)比较,标定出FBG的声压灵敏度,在1～25KHz的声波检测范围,其响应平坦度好、信号输出稳定,改进措施是有效的。     

Field measurements of sonic boom penetration into the ocean

Six sonic booms, generated by F-4 aircraft under steady flight at a range of altitudes (610-6100 m) and Mach numbers (1.07-1.26), were measured just above the air/sea interface, and at five depths in the water column. The measurements were made with a vertical hydrophone array suspended from a small spar buoy at the sea surface, and telemetered to a nearby research vessel. The sonic boom pressure amplitude decays exponentially with depth, and the signal fades into the ambient noise field by 30-50 m, depending on the strength of the boom at the sea surface. Low-frequency components of the boom waveform penetrate significantly deeper than high frequencies. Frequencies greater than 20 Hz are difficult to observe at depths greater than about 10 m. Underwater sonic boom pressure measurements exhibit excellent agreement with predictions from analytical theory, despite the assumption of a flat air/sea interface. Significant scattering of the sonic boom signal by the rough ocean surface is not detected. Real ocean conditions appear to exert a negligible effect on the penetration of sonic booms into the ocean unless steady vehicle speeds exceed Mach 3, when the boom incidence angle is sufficient to cause scattering on realistic open ocean surfaces.     

声屏蔽技术抗拖船干扰

提出了多途信道中的声屏蔽技术,并应用于抗拖船干扰,以克服传统的阵处理办法抑制拖船干扰时所存在的探测盲区问题。把拖曳线列阵接收的拖船干扰和同方位的目标信号在频域通过一个屏蔽聚焦权滤波器,在对干扰屏蔽的同时,对目标聚焦。针对聚焦权实用性差的缺点,又提出了屏蔽非聚焦权,并与常规波束形成做了比较。11元水平阵数据仿真结果表明,该技术提高了处理增益约5 dB;在抑制拖船干扰提高处理增益的同时,理论上也可以消除掉在该方向上强目标干扰形成的探测盲区。     

Research of the planar optical fiber Bragg grating hydrophone probe

This paper presents the planar Fiber Bragg Grating （FBG） hydrophone probe sensing principle, and theoretically and experimentally researches the probe structure sensitivity, the receiving sensitivity frequency response characteristic and the acceleration response property. Planar sheet is made of stainless steel, its thickness is 0.15 mm, its diameter is 15mm, and the length of hollow circular shell is 20 mm. For this size of the structure, the probe structure sensitivity is up to 23 fm/Pa, which is about 7300 times of the value of the bare fiber. The resonance frequency is 6.5 kHz, and the amplitude-frequency curve of the receiving sensitivity response is relatively flat within the frequency range of 100 Hz to 5.5 kHz. The output yielded by one unit acceleration （1m/s2） is equivalent to （2.52 to 3.26 Pa） acoustic pressure acting output. This probe structure is easy to form FBG hydrophone array by multiplexing technique. The research shows that this planar structure not only can form FBG hydrophone probe, but also can constitute optical FBG laser hydrophone probe. The structure can realize different bandwidth, different range acoustic pressure measurement by adjusting the geometrical size of the sheet.     

光纤Bragg光栅水听器特性及实验研究

论述了光纤Bragg光栅（FBG）水听器探头基元 （FBG）的传感特性,分析了FBG的耦合系数、反射率、反射带宽和栅长对光纤Bragg光栅水听器传感特性的影响.通过改进光纤Bragg光栅水听器探头封装结构,增加了其压力敏感系数.并将实验结果与标准水听器（压电型）比较,标定出光纤Bragg光栅水听器的声压灵敏度；对传感信号进行电路解调,得出了解调结果,结果显示与原始声波信号基本一致.试验表明,在1 kHz~25 kHz的声波检测范围,光纤Bragg光栅水听器响应平坦度好,信号输出稳定,证明文中采取的改进措施是有效的.     

Digital acoustic communication in shallow-water sea for oceanological applications

Results of experiments on slow transmission of digital information using acoustic signals in complex oceanological conditions, i.e., in the presence of multiray propagation and motion of a sound source, are given. Coding with the help of pseudorandom sequences and coherent summation of the signals transmitted along a multiplicity of different rays with different Doppler frequencies and received by different elements of an extended receiving array are performed. The used method provided an opportunity to attain errorless transmission of codes at distances larger than 5 km. A theoretical estimate is given for the probability of an erroneous decision on the value of transmitted codes.     

Correlation characteristics of pseudonoise signals in the ocean at a highly directional reception

Data of experiments with single-path and multipath reception of broadband continuous pseudonoise acoustic signals (0.8–1.3 kHz) in a deep ocean are discussed. The experiments were carried out on tracks from ～ 60 to ～ 420 km in length, which corresponds to the first seven convergence zones. The data on the cross-correlation coefficients and arrival time differences are presented (for the first, second, and seventh zones) for signals received by one highly directional (～2°) vertical array or by two such arrays simultaneously at depths of 200 and 450 m. The correlation characteristics of signals propagating over purely water paths, i.e., without reflections from the waveguide boundaries, and arriving under different angles in the vertical plane are compared. It is found that the origin of the decorrelation of signals received from various directions or at different depths (all other factors being the same) is the incomplete resolution of the received multipath signals in the arrival angle in the vertical plane.     

Measurement of sound-pressure distribution in replicas of the oral cavity.

The spatial distributions of sound pressure in artificial oral cavities were measured to examine the characteristics of wave propagation in the vocal tract. The measurement was performed with plaster replicas of the oral cavity, and pure tones were used as the driving signals to obtain both amplitude and phase distributions at varied frequencies. Plane-wave propagation, which has been widely assumed for speech production models, was examined from the measured spatial distributions of sound pressure. Trajectories of media particles and vectorial maps of acoustic intensity, which can be computed from the measured pressure distributions, were also presented to visualize the acoustic field in the oral cavity. The results showed that at certain frequencies there existed points where sound pressure was absolutely zero, with the phase spatially circulating around them. Up to about 4 kHz, except at these certain frequencies, the wave front was almost one-dimensional, though an amplitude gradient was seen in the vertical direction.     

Acoustic normal mode fluctuation statistics in the 1995 SWARM internal wave scattering experiment

In order to understand the fluctuations imposed upon low frequency (50 to 500 Hz) acoustic signals due to coastal internal waves, a large multilaboratory, multidisciplinary experiment was performed in the Mid-Atlantic Bight in the summer of 1995. This experiment featured the most complete set of environmental measurements (especially physical oceanography and geology) made to date in support of a coastal acoustics study. This support enabled the correlation of acoustic fluctuations to clearly observed ocean processes, especially those associated with the internal wave field. More specifically, a 16 element WHOI vertical line array (WVLA) was moored in 70 m of water off the New Jersey coast. Tomography sources of 224 Hz and 400 Hz were moored 32 km directly shoreward of this array, such that an acoustic path was constructed that was anti-parallel to the primary, onshore propagation direction for shelf generated internal wave solitons. These nonlinear internal waves, produced in packets as the tide shifts from ebb to flood, produce strong semidiurnal effects on the acoustic signals at our measurement location. Specifically, the internal waves in the acoustic waveguide cause significant coupling of energy between the propagating acoustic modes, resulting in broadband fluctuations in modal intensity, travel-time, and temporal coherence. The strong correlations between the environmental parameters and the internal wave field include an interesting sensitivity of the spread of an acoustic pulse to solitons near the receiver.     

On measurement of acoustic pulse arrival angles using a vertical array

We consider a recently developed method to analyze the angular structure of pulsed acoustic fields in an underwater sound channel. The method is based on the Husimi transform that allows us to approximately link a wave field with the corresponding ray arrivals. The advantage of the method lies in the possibility of its practical realization by a vertical hydrophone array crossing only a small part of the oceanic depth. The main aim of the present work is to find the optimal parameter values of the array that ensure good angular accuracy and sufficient reliability of the algorithm to calculate the arrival angles. Broadband pulses with central frequencies of 80 and 240 Hz are considered. It is shown that an array with a length of several hundred meters allows measuring the angular spectrum with an accuracy of up to 1 degree. The angular resolution is lowered with an increase of the sound wavelength due to the fundamental limitations imposed by the uncertainty relation.