Abstract
Bottom scattering is important for a number of underwater applications: it is a source of noise in target detection and a source of information for sediment classification and geoacoustic inversion. While current models can predict the effective interface scattering strength for layered sediments, these models cannot directly compute the ensemble averaged mean-square pressure. A model for bottom scattering due to a point source is introduced which provides a full-wave solution for mean-square scattered pressure as a function of time under first-order perturbation theory. Examples of backscatter time series from various types of seafloors will be shown, and the advantages and limitations of this model will be discussed.
Highlights
Sound scattering by the seafloor is important in several applications of sonar, ranging from mapping seafloor topography, detection of mines and other objects, and seafloor characterization
The Geoacoustic Bottom Interaction Model (GABIM)3 treats a broad class of problems involving sound scattering from layered seafloors, but, while it incorporates interference effects due to internal reflections, it ascribes the net scattering to a single effective interface
TDSS avoids the windowing approximation used for volume scattering in GABIM, but is less accurate near the specular direction because of its reliance upon small-roughness perturbation theory rather than the Kirchhoff approximation
Summary
Sound scattering by the seafloor is important in several applications of sonar, ranging from mapping seafloor topography, detection of mines and other objects, and seafloor characterization. The full-wave approach of the present work includes the effects of internal reflections and can handle broadband signals It is applicable near vertical incidence and should be useful in modeling high-resolution echo sounding of finely layered seafloors (e.g., turbidites). VI, interface roughness is sufficiently small so that no difficulty is expected for backscattering near vertical incidence It should be remembered, that in cases of small roughness, the incoherent field treated by this model will be accompanied by a coherent field, not treated here. The relative merits of the two methods should become apparent with further use, but the present article does not enter into this issue Both approaches are full-wave methods using wavenumber integration, but we anticipate future application of approximations to improve numerical efficiency.
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