Geoacoustic inversion with ships as sources

Estimation of geoacoustic parameters using acoustic data from a surface ship was performed for a shallow water region in the Gulf of Mexico. The data were recorded from hydrophones in a bottom mounted, horizontal line array (HLA). The techniques developed to produce the geoacoustic inversion are described, and an efficient method for geoacoustic inversion with broadband beam cross-spectral data is demonstrated. The performance of cost functions that involve coherent or incoherent sums over frequency and one or multiple time segments is discussed. Successful inversions for the first sediment layer sound speed and thickness and some of the parameters for the deeper layers were obtained with the surface ship at nominal ranges of 20, 30, or 50 water depths. The data for these inversions were beam cross-spectra from four subapertures of the HLA spanning a little more than two water depths. The subaperture beams included ten frequencies equally spaced in the 120-200 Hz band. The values of the geoacoustic parameters from the inversions are validated by comparisons with geophysical observations and with the parameter values from previous inversions by other invesigators, and by comparing transmission loss (TL) measured in the experiment with modeled TL based on the inverted geoacoustic parameters.     

Sound speed profile characterization by the image source method

This paper presents the first results of an imaging technique that measures the geoacoustic structure of a seafloor in shallow water areas. The devices used were a broadband (100 Hz-6 kHz) acoustic source towed by a ship and a vertical array. Among all the acoustic paths existing in the water column, two are used: the direct one and the seabed-reflected one, the latter being composed of the reflections from the seafloor's surface as well as that from each buried layer. Due to the good time resolution of the signal and to the short range configuration, the reflected signal can be modeled as a sum of contributions coming from image sources relative to the seabed layers. The seabed geometry and the sound speed profile can then be recovered with the detection and localization of these image sources. The map of the image sources is obtained by a function that combines back-propagation of signals and knowledge of the emitted pulse. The thickness and sound-speed of each layer is finally obtained by a position analysis of the image sources. The results obtained by this data-driven algorithm on both at-sea and synthetic data are satisfactory.     

Geoacoustic inversion for bottom parameters in a thermocline environment in the northern area of the South China Sea

Bottom acoustic parameters have important influence on the application of underwater acoustic propagation and source location.The acoustic parameters of the seabed in the northern of the South China Sea(SCS) were inversed using the experiment data from an acoustic experiment in 2015.Based on the comprehensive analysis of the influence of the sound speed fluctuation and the geoacoustic model on seabed inversion,the multi-parameter hybrid acoustic inversion scheme is improved by selecting the equivalent mean sound speed profile(SSP) and half-infinite liquid bottom model to save the inversion dimensions in the matched field processing(MFP) inversion.The inverted bottom sound speed and density are in good agreement with the core sampling measurements.The nonlinear empirical relationship of the attenuation coefficient with frequency is given out.The inversion results are meaningful to the sound propagation research and application in the northern area of the SCS.     

Optimized constraints for the linearized geoacoustic inverse problem

A geoacoustic inversion scheme to estimate the depth-dependent sound speed characteristics of the shallow-water waveguide is presented. The approach is based on the linearized perturbative technique developed by Rajan et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 82, 998-1017 (1987)]. This method is applied by assuming a background starting model for the environment that includes both the water column and the seabed. Typically, the water column properties are assumed to be known and held fixed in the inversion. Successful application of the perturbative inverse technique lies in handling issues of stability and uniqueness associated with solving a discrete ill-posed problem. Conventionally, such problems are regularized, a procedure which results in a smooth solution. Past applications of this inverse technique have been restricted to cases for which the water column sound speed profile was known and sound speed in the seabed could be approximated by a smooth profile. In this work, constraints that are better suited to specific aspects of the geoacoustic inverse problem are applied. These techniques expand on the original application of the perturbative inverse technique by including the water column sound speed profile in the solution and by allowing for discontinuities in the seabed sound speed profile.     

一种低声速沉积层海底参数声学反演方法

软泥底环境下沉积层参数的声学反演是国际水声领域的一个研究热点.浅海中,当高声速基底和海水之间存在一层低声速(小于海水声速)的沉积层时,小掠射角情况下不同频率声传播损失会出现周期性增大现象.基于此现象,提出一种适用于低声速沉积层的海底参数声学反演方法.首先,推导给出小掠射角情况下传播损失周期增大的频率间隔与沉积层声速、厚度及近海底海水声速之间的解析表达式;其次,利用一次黄海实验中软泥底环境下的宽带声传播信号,提取了小掠射角下传播损失增大的频率周期;再次,把该解析表达式作为约束条件,结合Hamilton密度与声速的经验公式,采用匹配场处理反演给出沉积层的声速、密度、厚度及基底的声速、密度;然后,利用声传播损失数据反演得到泥底环境下不同频率的声衰减系数,通过拟合发现泥底声衰减系数随频率近似呈线性关系;最后,给出了双层海底模型和半无限大海底模型等效性的讨论.反演结果为低声速沉积层海底声传播规律研究与应用提供了海底声学参数.     

The impact of water column variability on horizontal wave number estimation and mode based geoacoustic inversion results

The influence of water column variability on low-frequency, shallow water geoacoustic inversion results is considered. The data are estimates of modal eigenvalues obtained from measurements of a point source acoustic field using a horizontal aperture array in the water column. The inversion algorithm is based on perturbations to a background waveguide model with seabed properties consistent with the measured eigenvalues. Water column properties in the background model are assumed to be known, as would be obtained from conductivity, temperature, and depth measurements. The scope of this work in addressing the impact of water column variability on inversion is twofold. Range-dependent propagation effects as they pertain to eigenvalue estimation are first considered. It is shown that mode coupling is important even for weak internal waves and can enhance modal eigenvalue estimates. Second, the effect of the choice of background sound speed profile in the water column is considered for its impact on the estimated bottom acoustic properties. It is shown that a range-averaged sound velocity profile yields the best geoacoustic parameter estimates.     

Sequential Parameter Estimation Using Modal Dispersion Curves in Shallow Water

Existing sequential parameter estimation methods use the acoustic pressure of a line array as observations. The modal dispersion curves are employed to estimate the sound speed profile(SSP) and geoacoustic parameters based on the ensemble Kalman filter. The warping transform is implemented to the signals received by a single hydrophone to obtain the dispersion curves. The experimental data are collected at a range-independent shallow water site in the South China Sea. The results indicate that the SSPs are well estimated and the geoacoustic parameters are also well determined. Comparisons of the observed and estimated modal dispersion curves show good agreement.     

舰船辐射噪声贝叶斯方法反演浅海底层结构及地声参数EI北大核心CSCD

针对以舰船辐射噪声为参考声源的浅海海底分层结构及地声参数反演问题,研究了一种基于贝叶斯理论的浅海多层海底地声参数反演方法。反演中以舰船辐射噪声的线谱成分为研究对象,进而采用非线性贝叶斯反演方法反演浅海底层结构、层中声速、声速衰减和密度,并对反演结果的不确定性进行分析。反演结果的最大后验概率估计值和边缘概率分布分别通过拨正模拟退火算法和Metropolis-Hastings采样法在各参数先验区间内计算获得,并根据贝叶斯信息准则确定最佳海底分层结构。海上实验表明:根据该方法反演获得海底分层结构及地声参数,计算得到的声压场与实测舰船辐射噪声传播损失误差不超过10%,反演结果能够准确表征实验海区海底特征。反演结果不确定性分析表明:海底纵波声速、横波声速以及密度的不确定性更小,对声压场变化更加敏感,反演结果更有效、准确。     

利用海底反射信号进行地声参数反演的方法

针对现有反演方法的缺点,提出了一种基于海底反射信号的地声参数高分辨反演方法.它利用短距离声源在不同深度上发射宽带线性调频信号,采用垂直阵进行接收,首先通过匹配滤波方法提取多径到达信息,然后利用海底反射损失曲线,反演海底表层的声速和密度,最后利用浅底层反射信号估计沉积层参数.由于海水中直达波受到内波的强烈影响,选择海底表面反射作为参考,用以可靠地计算浅底层反射的相对到达时间和幅度,从而估计出沉积层的厚度、速度和衰减系数.通过海上实验,验证了利用浅底层反射信号反演参数的有效性. 关键词： 海底参数 反演 浅底层反射信号     

利用多角度海底反向散射信号进行地声参数估计

针对现有海底地声参数估计方法的不足,提出了利用相控参量阵浅地层剖面仪接收的多角度海底反向散射信号进行地声参数估计的方法,首先利用正下方和斜入射方向上沉积层上、下表面的差频反向散射信号进行沉积层厚度和声速估计,然后利用正下方沉积层上、下表面两个不同频率的差频信号的反向散射信号估计沉积层衰减系数,最后利用正下方沉积层上表面原频反向散射信号估计沉积层阻抗,计算沉积层密度从而解决和声速的耦合性,通过水池试验验证了该方法的有效性。     

The effects of ignored seabed variability in geoacoustic inversion

Geoacoustic inversion using a matched-field inversion algorithm is a well-established technique for estimating the geoacoustic parameters of the seabed. This paper demonstrates how parameter estimation can be affected by unknown or wishfully ignored random range dependence of the true environment when the inversion model is--for practicality--assumed to be range independent. Simulations with controlled statistics were carried out using a simple shallow water model: an isospeed water column over a homogeneous elastic halfspace. The inversion parameters included water depth, compressional speed in the seabed, seabed density, and compressional wave attenuation. On average the environment is range independent: some parameters are constant while other parameters are random with range-independent means and variances. A Parabolic Equation underwater acoustic propagation model is used to calculate the simulated data fields for the range-dependent environment as well as to calculate the model fields for the range-independent inversion model. The Adaptive Simplex Simulated Annealing inversion algorithm is used to estimate the best-fit solution. It is found that ignoring the variability of even a single geoacoustic parameter leads to significant and correlated uncertainty (bias and variance) in the estimation of all inverted parameters. Results are presented for range variation of compressional sound speed and water depth.     

Maximum entropy approach to statistical inference for an ocean acoustic waveguide

A conditional probability distribution suitable for estimating the statistical properties of ocean seabed parameter values inferred from acoustic measurements is derived from a maximum entropy principle. The specification of the expectation value for an error function constrains the maximization of an entropy functional. This constraint determines the sensitivity factor (β) to the error function of the resulting probability distribution, which is a canonical form that provides a conservative estimate of the uncertainty of the parameter values. From the conditional distribution, marginal distributions for individual parameters can be determined from integration over the other parameters. The approach is an alternative to obtaining the posterior probability distribution without an intermediary determination of the likelihood function followed by an application of Bayes' rule. In this paper the expectation value that specifies the constraint is determined from the values of the error function for the model solutions obtained from a sparse number of data samples. The method is applied to ocean acoustic measurements taken on the New Jersey continental shelf. The marginal probability distribution for the values of the sound speed ratio at the surface of the seabed and the source levels of a towed source are examined for different geoacoustic model representations.     

Full wave-field reflection coefficient inversion

This paper develops a Bayesian inversion for recovering multilayer geoacoustic (velocity, density, attenuation) profiles from a full wave-field (spherical-wave) seabed reflection response. The reflection data originate from acoustic time series windowed for a single bottom interaction, which are processed to yield reflection coefficient data as a function of frequency and angle. Replica data for inversion are computed using a wave number-integration model to calculate the full complex acoustic pressure field, which is processed to produce a commensurate seabed response function. To address the high computational cost of calculating short range acoustic fields, the inversion algorithms are parallelized and frequency averaging is replaced by range averaging in the forward model. The posterior probability density is interpreted in terms of optimal parameter estimates, marginal distributions, and credibility intervals. Inversion results for the full wave-field seabed response are compared to those obtained using plane-wave reflection coefficients. A realistic synthetic study indicates that the plane-wave assumption can fail, producing erroneous results with misleading uncertainty bounds, whereas excellent results are obtained with the full-wave reflection inversion.     

Anomalous sound propagation due to the horizontal variation of seabed acoustic properties

Sound speed profile and the bottom acoustic property are two of the most important factors, which influence the sound propagation in shallow water. The activities of the internal waves make the temperature of the sea-water varying with the time and space, and then affect the sound propagation in the sea. In 1991 Zhou and his colleagues postu-lated that unusually high transmission losses (TL) over a limited frequency range found in annual measurements taken in the Yellow Sea was due to the in…     

Range-dependent seabed characterization by inversion of acoustic data from a towed receiver array

The MAPEX2000 experiments were conducted in the Mediterranean Sea in March, 2000 to determine seabed properties using a towed acoustic source and receiver array. Towed systems are advantageous because they are easy to deploy from a ship and the moving platform offers the possibility for estimating spatially variable (range-dependent) seabed properties. In this paper, seabed parameters are determined using a matched-field geoacoustic inversion approach with measured, towed array data. Previous research has successfully applied matched-field geoacoustic inversion techniques to measured acoustic data. However, in nearly all cases the inverted data were collected on moored, vertical receiver arrays. Results here show that seabed parameters can also be extracted by inverting acoustic measurements from a towed array of receivers, and these agree with those inverted using data received simultaneously on a vertical array. These findings imply that a practical technique could be developed to map range-dependent seabed parameters over large areas using a towed acoustic system. An example of such a range-dependent inversion is given using measurements from the MAPEX2000 experiments.     

Bayesian geoacoustic inversion using wind-driven ambient noise

This paper applies Bayesian inversion to bottom-loss data derived from wind-driven ambient noise measurements from a vertical line array to quantify the information content constraining seabed geoacoustic parameters. The inversion utilizes a previously proposed ray-based representation of the ambient noise field as a forward model for fast computations of bottom loss data for a layered seabed. This model considers the effect of the array's finite aperture in the estimation of bottom loss and is extended to include the wind speed as the driving mechanism for the ambient noise field. The strength of this field relative to other unwanted noise mechanisms defines a signal-to-noise ratio, which is included in the inversion as a frequency-dependent parameter. The wind speed is found to have a strong impact on the resolution of seabed geoacoustic parameters as quantified by marginal probability distributions from Bayesian inversion of simulated data. The inversion method is also applied to experimental data collected at a moored vertical array during the MAPEX 2000 experiment, and the results are compared to those from previous active-source inversions and to core measurements at a nearby site.     

南海北部负跃层环境下海底参数声学反演

利用2015年南海北部声学实验的实验数据,对海底声学参数进行反演。在综合分析声速起伏及海底模型对海底反演影响的基础上,通过选择等效的海水声速剖面和海底模型,改进了多参量联合地声反演方法,使得其不仅能解决反演中的多值性问题,还能适用于负跃层起伏环境下的声学反演。即当用匹配场反演海底声速和用传播损失反演海底衰减时,如果温跃层内有内波等随机起伏,可使用传播路径上平均声速剖面和单层等效海底进行声场计算。反演得到的海底声速和密度结果与海底采样测量符合较好,拟合给出了海底衰减系数随频率的非线性经验关系式。反演结果可为南海北部声传播规律研究与应用提供海底参数。      

Remote sensing of sediment density and velocity gradients in the transition layer

The geoacoustic properties of marine sediments, e.g., bulk density and compressional velocity, commonly exhibit large variations in depth near the water-sediment interface. This layer, termed the transition layer, is typically of 0(10(-1)-10(0)) m in thickness. Depth variations within the transition layer may have important implications for understanding and modeling acoustic interaction with the seabed, including propagation and reverberation. In addition, the variations may contain significant clues about the underlying depositional or erosional processes. Characteristics of the transition layer can be measured directly (e.g., coring) or remotely. Remote measurements have the advantage of sampling without disturbing the sediment properties; they also have the potential to be orders of magnitude faster and less expensive than direct methods. It is shown that broadband seabed reflection data can be exploited to remotely obtain the depth dependent density and velocity profiles in the transition layer to high accuracy. A Bayesian inversion approach, which accounts for correlated data errors, provides estimates and uncertainties for the geoacoustic properties. These properties agree with direct (i.e., core) measurements within the uncertainty estimates.     

Correlation processing of a noise signal in the arrival-time acoustic monitoring of the water medium in an arctic waveguide

The propagation of a noise signal is considered for an arctic-type waveguide with a varying sound speed profile. The profiles used in the calculations differ from each other due to different depth dependences of salinity. The shape of the envelope of the time correlation function is studied for the coherent and reference signals. For the latter, either the replica of the transmitted noise signal or one of the modes propagating in the waveguide is used. A characteristic feature of the proposed technique is the use of the time cross-correlation between the signals that traveled through the same path in the presence of different sound speed profiles. In this case, from the shape of the envelope of the signal correlation function, one can estimate the changes that occur in the sound speed profile on the path of signal propagation.     

大陆架低频声传播建模研究

在过去的几十年中大陆架斜坡海域的低频声传播得到越来越多的重视。针对爆炸声作为声源的一次海上实验测量数据,对大陆架海域的低频远距离声传播进行了建模研究。在实验过程中单水听器布放在水下大约240m处接收爆炸声信号,对两条不同测线的传播损失进行了处理。本文结合海底地声模型并考虑了声速剖面的水平变化,利用抛物方程方法对传播损失进行建模。模拟计算该海域的传播损失同实验测量数据相比具有较好的一致性。