Calculation of the reverberation spectrum for Doppler-based sonar

For monostatic sonar using long pulsed tone signals, the problem of evaluating the spectrum of reverberation due to sound wave scattering by a rough sea surface is solved. Relatively simple computational schemes are proposed, which make it possible (i) to transform the three-dimensional spectra of surface waves to the frequency-angular characteristics of reverberation and (ii) to choose the optimal operating frequency band for a Doppler sonar from the point of view of reverberation. For typical wind wave characteristics measured in shallow water areas, the spectral levels of reverberation are estimated in the frequency band of acoustic signals within 0.4?C2 kHz.     

The influence of random drift of resonance-scattering harmonics on the frequency spectrum of surface acoustic reverberation in the ocean

We propose a modified model for the frequency spectrum of surface reverberation with allowance for random drift of Bragg resonance harmonics due to long wind-generated waves. The dependence of this effect on the parameters of large-scale surface waves is analyzed. Analytical expressions for the reverberation frequency spectrum are obtained for both narrow-band and wideband sounding signals. It is shown that for matched filtering of wideband signals, the considered effect leads to an increase in the effective pulse reverberation volume. __________ Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 50, No. 1, pp. 20–30, January 2007.     

Blind dereverberation of a speech signal

Possibilities to eliminate the reverberation from a speech signal are investigated by applying the method based on the determination of the parameters of the reverberation frequency response from the cepstrum of the reverberation-distorted signal. The delays of reverberating signals and, for the case of a weak reverberation, their amplitudes are determined from the cepstrum of the signal with reverberation. For the cases of medium and strong reverberation, the levels of reverberating signals are refined by adjusting a certain factor. The criterion used for the adjustment of the factor is based on the shape of the speech signal amplitude distribution. By numerical modeling, it is demonstrated that the proposed method can reduce the reverberation level by 30 dB.     

The Role of Volume Scattering in the Formation of Surface Reverberation in the Ocean

We study the influence of sound-speed perturbations in a waveguide volume, originating from wind roughness, on the energy characteristics of scattered acoustic pulses. We show analytically and by numerical simulations that the pulse reverberation signals scattered by wind roughness in summer-type shallow-water channels significantly increase due to such perturbations. This effect stipulates the significant increase in the level of reverberation signals in the interval of small delay times. Dependences of the considered phenomenon on the wind velocity, the number of the received waveguide modes, and other parameters of the problem are analyzed.     

基于简正波理论的浅海低频混响时间序列仿真

混响场时域信号序列的数值实现对主动声纳目标模拟器研制具有重要意义。本文所述适用于水平变化浅海环境混响时间序列的一种实现方法,基于现有的浅海简正波相干混响理论。所述方法的思路是通过相干散射场随机序列与发射信号的离散卷积来构成混响时域序列,文中以Pekeris均匀浅海环境为例,给出了相应的混响时间序列仿真结果,并对仿真结果的频谱特性、统计特性、强度衰减以及垂直相关特性等进行了系统检验。结果表明,由仿真混响时间序列所获得的混响特性与理论结果相符,可用于浅海混响序列的仿真。     

Blind single-channel suppression of late reverberation based on perceptual reverberation modeling

A blind method for suppressing late reverberation from speech and audio signals is presented. The proposed technique operates both on the spectral and on the sub-band domains employing a single input channel. At first, a preliminary rough clean signal estimation is required and for this, any standard technique may be applied; however here the estimate is obtained through spectral subtraction. Then, an auditory masking model is employed in sub-bands to extract the reverberation masking index (RMI) which identifies signal regions with perceived alterations due to late reverberation. Utilizing a selective signal processing technique only these regions are suppressed through sub-band temporal envelope filtering based on analytical expressions. Objective and subjective measures indicate that the proposed method achieves significant late reverberation suppression for both speech and music signals over a wide range of reverberation time (RT) scenarios.     

Theoretical model of surface reverberation with allowance for interference of acoustic modes

We report on preliminary results of developing a theoretical model of surface reverberation with allowance for the interference structure of acoustic fields in oceanic waveguides. Basic expressions relating the intensity and two-dimensional frequency-time uncertainty function of the reverberation signals to the wind-wave parameters and the characteristics of sounding pulses are presented. Main physical effects determining the influence of intermode correlations on the reverberation are discussed. In this context, both narrow-and wideband emitted signals are analyzed. __________ Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 51, No. 5, pp. 391-398, May 2008.     

The effect of loudness on the reverberance of music: reverberance prediction using loudness models

This study examines the auditory attribute that describes the perceived amount of reverberation, known as "reverberance." Listening experiments were performed using two signals commonly heard in auditoria: excerpts of orchestral music and western classical singing. Listeners adjusted the decay rate of room impulse responses prior to convolution with these signals, so as to match the reverberance of each stimulus to that of a reference stimulus. The analysis examines the hypothesis that reverberance is related to the loudness decay rate of the underlying room impulse response. This hypothesis is tested using computational models of time varying or dynamic loudness, from which parameters analogous to conventional reverberation parameters (early decay time and reverberation time) are derived. The results show that listening level significantly affects reverberance, and that the loudness-based parameters outperform related conventional parameters. Results support the proposed relationship between reverberance and the computationally predicted loudness decay function of sound in rooms.     

Reverberation of Wideband Signals in Shallow Water when Using Sound Focusing

Within the framework of the normal mode approximation, expressions are obtained for calculating bottom reverberation signals recorded by a horizontal array in an inhomogeneous shallow-water waveguide in a wide frequency band. These expressions can be used to simulate bottom-scattered signals both for a monostatic and bistatic geometry, as well as in the case when sound focusing is applied. The constructed model is used to numerically study the structure of bottom reverberation in a waveguide with different parameters and characteristics of the receiver and source systems. The considered bottom inhomogeneities are the slope of the bottom, change in thermocline depth, and wind waves. The study demonstrates the promise of using sound focusing as time reversal using a single receiver–transmitter element to enhance the reverberation signal arriving from a given bottom area.     

Quantifying seismic survey reverberation off the Alaskan North Slope

Shallow-water airgun survey activities off the North Slope of Alaska generate impulsive sounds that are the focus of much regulatory attention. Reverberation from repetitive airgun shots, however, can also increase background noise levels, which can decrease the detection range of nearby passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) systems. Typical acoustic metrics for impulsive signals provide no quantitative information about reverberation or its relative effect on the ambient acoustic environment. Here, two conservative metrics are defined for quantifying reverberation: a minimum level metric measures reverberation levels that exist between airgun pulse arrivals, while a reverberation metric estimates the relative magnitude of reverberation vs expected ambient levels in the hypothetical absence of airgun activity, using satellite-measured wind data. The metrics are applied to acoustic data measured by autonomous recorders in the Alaskan Beaufort Sea in 2008 and demonstrate how seismic surveys can increase the background noise over natural ambient levels by 30-45 dB within 1 km of the activity, by 10-25 dB within 15 km of the activity, and by a few dB at 128 km range. These results suggest that shallow-water reverberation would reduce the performance of nearby PAM systems when monitoring for marine mammals within a few kilometers of shallow-water seismic surveys.     

Methods for calculating low-frequency surface reverberation at known sea roughness characteristics

The problem of estimating the parameters of a reverberation signal generated due to scattering of acoustic waves on a rough surface is considered for a bistatic localization scheme using the example of tone and tone-pulse signals. Relatively simple calculation schemes that make it possible to recalculate three-dimensional space-time roughness spectra into angular-frequency reverberation characteristics and determine the positions of the surface regions that mainly contribute to the integral reverberation level are found. A reverberation spectrum is calculated for the wind waves typical for shallow-water closed basins, and the positions of the scattering regions forming the components of this spectrum are determined.     

改进次最佳检测在侧扫声呐底混响抑制中的应用*

侧扫声呐进行沉底小目标探测时,底混响是主要背景干扰。底混响通常是一种非平稳、非高斯的带限噪声,它使得白噪声条件下的滤波器性能受到限制。在混响背景下常利用自回归模型对接收信号进预行白化处理,但对于实际侧扫声呐应用,白化后直接匹配滤波的处理效果不甚理想。针对此问题,在自回归模型预白化的基础上,提出采用一种次最佳检测与多分辨二分奇异值分解相结合的改进方法。该方法首先对接收信号进行分段处理,利用改进Burg算法估计每段数据自回归模型的系数及阶数;然后构造白化滤波器对分段数据预白化,并对白化后的数据进行多分辨二分奇异值分解;最后应用ostu方法对原始声图和处理后的声图进行目标检测。仿真与实验结果表明,该方法明显提高了信混比,改善了侧扫声呐沉底静态小目标的成图质量,有利于后期实现基于图像的目标自动检测。     

Speech dereverberation method based on spectral subtraction and spectral line enhancement

Speech signals recorded with a distant microphone usually are interfered by the spatial reverberation in the room, which severely degrades the clarity and intelligibility of speech. A speech dereverberation method based on spectral subtraction and spectral line enhancement is proposed in this paper. Following the generalized statistical reverberation model, the power spectrum of late reverberation is estimated and removed from the reverberation speech by the spectral subtraction method. Then, according to the human auditory model, a spectral line enhancement technique based on adaptive post-filtering is adopted to further eliminate the reverberant components between adjacent speech formants. The proposed method can effectively suppress the spatial reverberation and improve the auditory perception of speech. The subjective and objective evaluation results reveal that the perceptual quality of speech is greatly improved by the proposed method.     

Reverberation of rapid and slow trills: implications for signal adaptations to long-range communication

Many acoustic signals in animals include trills, i.e., rapid repetitions of similar elements. Elements within these trills usually are frequency modulated and are degraded by reverberation during long-range transmission. Reverberation primarily affects consecutive elements with the same frequency characteristics and thus imposes a major constraint in the evolution of design and perception of long-range signals containing trills. Here transmission of frequency-unmodulated trills with different element repetition rates was studied. Trills were generated at different frequencies to assess frequency dependence of reverberation and then broadcast under three acoustic conditions--an open field and to assess seasonal changes in transmission properties, a deciduous forest before and after foliage had emerged. Reverberation was quantified at different positions within trills. The results show strong effects of vegetation density (season), transmission distance, frequency, element repetition rate, and element position within the trill on effects of reverberation. The experiments indicate that fast trills transmit less well than slow trills and thus are less effective in long-range communication. They show in particular that selection on trills should not act only on element repetition rate within trills but also on the trill duration as effects of reverberation increased with trill duration.     

Qualitative difference between the signal and the surface reverberation in the active location with a coherent cumulation

It is shown that outwardly similar (in shapes and levels) pulses reflected from a moving discrete target (the signal) and produced by sound scattering from the waved water surface (the surface reverberation) have a qualitative difference, which manifests itself in a coherent cumulation of signals. The signal and the surface reverberation differently increase as the interval of their coherent summation grows. Quantitatively, this difference consists in the fact that the signal has a much smaller variance of deviations from the linear law of its increase. The effect is observed both in in-field experiments and in numerical simulations.     

Auralization study of optimum reverberation times for speech intelligibility for normal and hearing-impaired listeners in classrooms with diffuse sound fields

Speech-intelligibility tests auralized in a virtual classroom were used to investigate the optimal reverberation times for verbal communication for normal-hearing and hearing-impaired adults. The idealized classroom had simple geometry, uniform surface absorption, and an approximately diffuse sound field. It contained a speech source, a listener at a receiver position, and a noise source located at one of two positions. The relative output levels of the speech and noise sources were varied, along with the surface absorption and the corresponding reverberation time. The binaural impulse responses of the speech and noise sources in each classroom configuration were convolved with Modified Rhyme Test (MRT) and babble-noise signals. The resulting signals were presented to normal-hearing and hearing-impaired adult subjects to identify the configurations that gave the highest speech intelligibilities for the two groups. For both subject groups, when the speech source was closer to the listener than the noise source, the optimal reverberation time was zero. When the noise source was closer to the listener than the speech source, the optimal reverberation time included both zero and nonzero values. The results generally support previous theoretical results.     

早晚期混响划分对理想比值掩蔽在语音识别性能上的影响

真实环境中存在的噪声和混响会降低语音识别系统的性能。封闭空间中的混响包括直达声、早期反射和后期混响3部分,它们对语音识别系统具有不同的影响.我们研究了早期反射和后期混响的不同划分方法,以其中的早期反射为目标语音,计算出了不同的理想比值掩蔽并研究了它们对语音识别系统性能的影响;在此基础上,利用双向长短时记忆网络(BLSTM)估计理想比值掩蔽,测试它们对语音识别系统性能的影响.实验结果表明,基于Abel早期反射和后期混响的划分方法,理想比值掩蔽能够降低词错误率约2.8%;基于BLSTM的估计方法过低估计了理想比值掩蔽,未能有效提高语音识别系统的性能。      

水声信号稀疏重构高分辨角度-多普勒成像

针对傅氏空时二维谱估计分辨率低以及声呐空时采样数据样本数不足给角度-多普勒成像带来困难的问题,提出一种水声信号稀疏重构的高分辨角度-多普勒成像方法和抗混响空时滤波器的稀疏重构方法.该方法在声呐阵列单测量向量的极少观测样本条件下,建立阵列信号的空时稀疏表示模型,应用稀疏表示的匹配追踪算法和基追踪算法重构回波与混响的高分辨...     

Speech segregation in rooms: monaural, binaural, and interacting effects of reverberation on target and interferer

Speech reception thresholds were measured in virtual rooms to investigate the influence of reverberation on speech intelligibility for spatially separated targets and interferers. The measurements were realized under headphones, using target sentences and noise or two-voice interferers. The room simulation allowed variation of the absorption coefficient of the room surfaces independently for target and interferer. The direct-to-reverberant ratio and interaural coherence of sources were also varied independently by considering binaural and diotic listening. The main effect of reverberation on the interferer was binaural and mediated by the coherence, in agreement with binaural unmasking theories. It appeared at lower reverberation levels than the effect of reverberation on the target, which was mainly monaural and associated with the direct-to-reverberant ratio, and could be explained by the loss of amplitude modulation in the reverberant speech signals. This effect was slightly smaller when listening binaurally. Reverberation might also be responsible for a disruption of the mechanism by which the auditory system exploits fundamental frequency differences to segregate competing voices, and a disruption of the "listening in the gaps" associated with speech interferers. These disruptions may explain an interaction observed between the effects of reverberation on the targets and two-voice interferers.