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- On bottom properties estimation from towed array dataPublication . Jesus, S. M.; Jesus, M. C.Estimating seabottom structure from the analysis of acoustic returns of an explosive source (air-gun, sparker...) has been used for a long time as a routine survey technique. Recent work showed the possibility of using well-suited numerical numbers to invert the acoustic field for inverting detalied sedimental physical properties.
- Acoustic oceanographic buoy data report Makai Ex 2005Publication . Jesus, S. M.; Silva, A.; Zabel, F.It is now well accepted in the underwater acoustic scientific community that below, say, 1 kHz acoustic propagation models are accurate enough to be able to predict the received acoustic field up to the point of allowing precise and reliable source tracking in range and depth with only limited environmental information. This results from a large number of studies both theoretical and with real data, carried out in the last 20 years. With the event of underwater communications and the necessity to increase the signal bandwidth for allowing higher communication rates, the frequency band of interest was raised to above 10 kHz. In this frequency band the detailed knowledge of the environment - acoustic signal interplay is reduced. The purpose of the MakaiEx sea trial is to acquire data in a complete range of frequencies from 500 Hz up to 50 kHz, for a variety of applications ranging from high-frequency tomography, coherent SISO and MIMO applications, vector - sensor, active and passive sonar, etc...The MakaiEx sea trial, that took place off Kauai I. from 15 September - 2 October, involved a large number of teams both from government and international laboratories, universities and private companies, from various countries. Each team focused on its specific set of objectives in relation with its equipment or scientific interest. The team from the University of Algarve (UALg) focused on the data acquired by their receiving Acoustic Oceanographic Buoy - version 2 (AOB2) during six deployments in the period 15 - 27 September. This report describes the AOB2 data set as well as all the related environmental and geometrical data relative to the AOB2 deployments. The material described herein represents a valuable data set for supporting the research objectives of projects NUACE1, namely to fulfill NUACE’s task 3 and 4 and RADAR2, namely its tasks 2 and 3 devoted to the developement and testing of a field of sonobuoys.
- Shallow water tomography with a sparse array during the INTIMATE'98 sea trialPublication . Felisberto, P.; Jesus, S. M.; Stephan, Y.; Demoulin, X.Invert acoustic data using sparse arrays - at the limit with a single hydrophone - is a challenging task. The final goal is to obtain a rapid environmental assessment with systems both easier to deploy and less expensive than full vertical arrays. In this paper, it is shown that using a known broadband source signal and an array with few hydrophones, ocean acoustic tomography can be performed, even in a complex internal waves induced highly variable ocean. The inversion approach presented herein is based on an arrival matching processor and a genetic algorithm search procedure. Due to the poor accuracy on the a priori knowledge of the source range, source depth and water depth, the inversion procedure was split in two stages: in the first stage the geometric parameters where estimated and in the second stage sound speed estimates where obtained. This procedure was applied to field data, acquired during the INTIMATE'98 sea trial, in a shallow water area off the coast of France in the Gulf of Biscay. That area is expected to have a relatively high internal wave activity, specially during the summer. A 4 sec long - 700 Hz bandwidth linear frequency modulated signal was transmitted from a ship suspended sound source and received on a 4 element vertical array at a range of approximately 10.5 km, over a relatively range-independent area. The results from the inversion of the acoustic data are in line with those obtained by concurrent non acoustic data like GPS source range, measured source depth, XBT casts and temperature sensors.
- A sensitivity study for full-field inversion of geoacoustic data with a towed array in shallow waterPublication . Jesus, S. M.This paper presents some of the preliminary work aimed at estimating the ocean bottom morphological structure in coastal waters using a towed array. In order to obtain an idea of the expected performance of the system and draw some conclusions on its operation this study presents the sensitivity of three processors to variations of: array length, source and receiver positions, sensor noise, source frequency and frequency band. Conclusions tend to demonstrate that cost function sensitivity to sound speed variations is higher on the bottom top layers and it increases with array length. An increased sensitivity is generally acompanied by a cost function non-monotonic behavior creating local minima and making it more di cult to reach the global minimum. Attenuations have in general small in uence on the acoustic eld structure and are therefore di cult to estimate. Increasing the signal frequency band by incoherent module averaging has no signi cant in uence on sensitivity. A cost function relaying on the conventional matched lter has shown low sensitivity to sensor noise and is being extended to matching directional data from bottom arrivals at several frequencies. Mismatch cases, mainly those related to array/source relative position, will be also presented.
- Medium frequency (800-1600Hz) geoacoustic inversions with drifting sparse arrays during the MREA BP07 experimentPublication . Legac, J. C.; Hermand, J.-P.; Jesus, S. M.In order to evaluate properly the acoustic propagation characteristics in shallow water environments, it is well established that appropriate knowledge of the acoustic properties of the seabottom is required. In the last decade, full-field geoacoustic inversion techniques have been demonstrated to provide adequate methodologies to assess those properties. However, several of the developed techniques may suffer a lack of adequacy to the design of low-frequency active sonar systems (LFAS) for which the assessment of seabottom characteristics are drawn. For instance most matched-field inversion techniques demonstrated so far use acoustical signals at much lower frequencies than those of the sonar (few tens to hundreds Hertz to be compared to the 1-2 kHz range of standard LFAS). Furthermore, some of the techniques may be difficult to be handled in an â€oeoperationally relevant context― since they are based on relatively complex designed systems such as highly instrumented vertical line arrays spanning the whole water column. In this paper, we investigate the potentialities of medium frequency acoustical signals (800-1600 Hz) received at several ranges (from 1 km to 10 km) along a field of drifting sparse arrays eventually reduced to a couple of hydrophones or even a single one for spatial coherent geoacoustic inversion purposes. The experimental datasets of the Maritime Rapid Environmental Assessment BP’07 seatrials South of Elba Island in the Mediterranean Sea are used to support this study.
- Geophysical seafloor exploration with a towed array in shallow waterPublication . Caiti, A.; Jesus, S. M.The quantitative measurement or estimation of the geophysical properties of the seafloor upper sedimentary strata is a requirement in several marine applications, from geotechnical engineering to underwater acoustics. Traditional methods employ in-situ instrumentation (cone penetrometers, coring, etc.) and are able to probe the seafloor at selected points. This project aims at exploring the feasibility of seafloor model identification by acoustic means. In particular, the project has considered the use of an acoustic system, in which a ship tows both an acoustic source and an horizontal array of receivers. From the acoustic field measured at the receiving array, the seafloor parameters are estimated by suitable inversion algorithms. The project focused in particular on the use of such a system in shallow waters, and considered the advantages and limitations of the method from the point of view of system requirementes, signal processing and inversion strategies. Sensitivity studies show that it is indeed possible to recover the seafloor parameters in shallow water with a moderate aperture towed array, and experimental results are shown to demonstrate the feasibility of the concept. Possible improvements and further lines of research are also discussed.
- Single-hydrophone source tracking in a variable environmentPublication . Porter, M. B.; Jesus, S. M.; Stephan, Y.; Coelho, E.; Démoulin, X.Internal tides commonly occur along ocean coasts. They are internal waves driven by the usual tidal force and generated by scattering at a sharp bottom feature such as the shelf break. The internal tides are dramatic features with crests typically 10-30 km apart and wave heights of 20 m. On the ocean surface they cause only a gentle ripple about 10 cm high but they affect the shine of the surface. As a result, astronauts often see them as the tides propagate away from the shelf break. In June 1996, a shallow-water tomography experiment (INTIMATE 96) was conducted off the coast of Portugal to observe these internal tides and learn about their acoustic effects. A source was towed around a vertical hydrophone array to produce acoustic sections along several slices. The experiment also provided an ideal opportunity for testing model-based source tracking. Acoustic sections taken parallel to the Portuguese coast allowed us to understand the propagation physics in a range-independent area. With this we have been able to develop a matched-field algorithm suitable for use in the far more complicated downslope direction which, being perpendicular to the crests of the internal tides, also experiences strong ocean-temperature variations. We will discuss both the approach and the source tracking.
- Field calibration a tool for acoustic noise prediction. The CALCOM 10 data setPublication . Felisberto, P.; Jesus, S. M.; Martins, N.It is widely recognized that anthropogenic noise affects the marine fauna, thus it becomes a major concern in ocean management policies. In the other hand there is an increasing demand for wave energy installations that, presumably, are an important source of noise. A noise prediction tool is of crucial importance to assess the impact of a perspective installation. Contribute for the development of such a tool is one of the objectives of the WEAM project. In this context, the CALCOM’10 sea trial took place off the south coast of Portugal, from 22 to 24 June, 2010 with the purpose of field calibration. Field calibration is a concept used to tune the parameters of an acoustic propagation model for a region of interest. The basic idea is that one can significantly reduce the uncertainty of the predictions of acoustic propagation in a region, even with scarce environmental data (bathymetric, geoacoustic), given that relevant acoustic parameters obtained by acoustic inference (i.e. acoustic inversion) are integrated in the prediction scheme. For example, this concept can be applied to the classical problem of transmission loss predictions or, as in our case, the problem of predicting the distribution of acoustic noise due to a wave energy power plant. In such applications the accuracy of bathymetric and geoacoustic parameters estimated by acoustic means is not a concern, but only the uncertainty of the predicted acoustic field. The objective of this approach is to reduce the need for extensive hydrologic and geoacoustic surveys, and reduce the influence of modelling errors, for example due to the bathymetric discretization used. Next, it is presented the experimental setup and data acquired during the sea trial as well as preliminary results of channel characterization and acoustic forward modelling.
- Dynamics of acoustic propagation through a soliton wave packet: Observations from the INTIMATE'96 experimentPublication . Rodríguez, O. C.; Jesus, S. M.; Stephan, Y.; Demoulin, X.; Porter, M. B.; Coelho, E.; SpringerExperimental observations of acoustic propagation through a Soliton Wave Packet (SWP) show an abnormally large attenuation over some frequencies, that was found to be significantly time dependent and anisotropic. Nevertheless, by considering the problem of signal attenuation, the approach used in most of the studies can be considered as "static" since no additional effects were taken into account as a SWP evolves in range and time. Hydrographic and acoustic data from the INTIMATE'96 experiment clearly exhibit traces of the presence of soliton packets, but in contrast with known observations of attenuation, its frequency response also reveals a sudden increase of signal amplitude, which may be due to a focusing effect. This signal increase coincides with a significant peak found in current and temperature records. However, the correlation of both acoustic and hydrographic features is difficult to support due to the different time scales between the rate of hydrographic data sampling and the rate of signal transmissions. To study the possibility that a SWP could be responsible for the observed signal increase, the INTIMATE'96 hydrographic data was used to generate physically consistent distributions of "soliton-like" fields of temperature and sound velocity, which were used as input for a range-dependent normal-mode model it was found that for a particular soliton field, the set of "dynamic" (i.e., range-dependent and time-dependent) acoustic simulations reveals an acoustic signature similar to that observed in the data. These results contribute to a better understanding of underwater propagation in shallow-water coastal environments and therefore provide a potential basis for range-dependent temperature and sound-speed inversions.
- Broadband source localization with a single hydrophonePublication . Jesus, S. M.; Porter, M. B.; Stephan, Y.; Coelho, E.; Demoulin, X.Source localization with vertical arrays in shallow water has been a topic of intense research in the last 20 years. Although horizontal arrays can (and have) been used, vertical arrays are better suited for extracting signal modal structure and thus provide a source-location estimate in range and depth. It is well known that broadband signals have a localization capability superior to that of narrowband signals. One question that remains largely unresolved is whether frequency extent can compensate for the spatial diversity provided by sensor arrays, i.e., at the limit, can a broadband signal be localized with a single sensor ? This communication presents theoretical, simulated, and practical evidence that a multipath-delay maximum-likelihood estimator does provide enough signal to background discrimination for localizing a 500 Hz bandwidth signal at 5 km range in a 130 m depth shallow water channel with a single hydrophone. The real data used in this study was collected during the INTI-MATE'96 experiment which was conducted off the west of Portugal in June 1996 during an internal tide tomography experiment. Comparison with localization results provided by direct match between the received and the model-generated arrival patterns will be discussed.