Statistics of shallow water, high-frequency acoustic scattering and propagation

During August 1991, the Naval Research Laboratory conducted high-frequency shallow water acoustic scattering experiments in the Gulf of Mexico near Panama City, Florida. The acoustic measurements included surface and bottom reverberation, surface and bottom forward scattering, and direct path propagation. The results reported are confined to the direct and bottom forward reflected paths and include the statistical characteristics of three signals; namely, the direct, the bottom reflected, and the direct plus the bottom reflected. Representative envelopes will be presented that illustrate the complexity of the shallow water environment statistics, including the means, variances, and probability distributions for each signal, are presented to discern any differences that can be exploited in the detection process. The frequency range covered during the experiment was from 20 to 180 kHz. The supporting environmental measurements included sound speed profiles, currents, wave heights, and bottom samples.<>