A survey of Lisa Zurk's contributions to physics-based signal processing in underwater acoustics

Abstract

The incorporation and exploitation of the physics of underwater acoustic propagation (including reflection and scattering) in signal and information processing can improve the performance of detection, classification, localization and tracking (DCLT) in sonar systems. This presentation will survey several areas of Prof. Lisa Zurk's research from this perspective of physics-based signal processing. Contributions are found in the areas of (i) assessing the impact of propagation through a non-stationary underwater environment on the performance of signal processing algorithms, (ii) adapting signal processing algorithms to be more robust to these environmental effects, and (iii) the exploitation of specific characteristics of the propagation channel in novel approaches to solving the above inferential objectives. Of these areas, identifying consistently observable propagation phenomena that can be exploited to improve DCLT performance is the most essential and yet the most difficult because it requires balancing just enough accuracy in the physical model with a simple enough representation to develop robust signal and information processing algorithms. Impressively, Prof. Zurk was quite successful in this crucial area of physics-based signal processing.