Challenges and possible solutions to acoustic tomography in shallow-water areas

• Published in: The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 2002-05, Vol.111 (5_Supplement), p.2460-2460
• Main Authors: Rudzinsky, Jason, Stein, Peter J., Rajan, Subramaniam D., Lewis, James K.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 0001-4966; 1520-8524
• DOI: 10.1121/1.4778489

The Pacific Missile Range Facility off the island of Kauai in the Hawaiian chain is equipped with a large number of bottom-mounted sources and receivers. This instrumentation provides an immense opportunity for the ocean acoustic community to create an ocean acoustic laboratory. Such a laboratory can be used to monitor the changes in the three-dimensional sound-speed structure in the region using acoustic tomography. An ocean model developed for the region predicts the sound-speed structure of the region given the atmospheric, tidal, and mesoscale circulation forcing functions. This information, supplemented by acoustic tomography results, can be used to develop a consistent picture of the sound-speed field of the region. We present the challenges involved in successful implementation of tomography. The challenges are posed by the location of the sources and receivers, the bathymetry of the region, the nature of the ocean/bottom interface, the limitation on the bandwidth of the source signal, and the factors affecting the acquisition of data. We will also present approaches that can be taken to overcome some of the problems. Preliminary results of a field experiment conducted to assess the feasibility of tomography in the region will be presented.