Antifade sonar employs acoustic field diversity to recover signals from multipath fading

Abstract

Co‐located pressure and particle motion (PM) hydrophones together with four‐channel diversity combiners may be used to recover signals from multipath fading. Multipath fading is important in both shallow and deep water propagation and can be an important source of signal loss. The acoustic field diversity concept arises from the notion of conservation of signal energy and the observation that in rooms at least, the total acoustic energy density is the sum of potential energy (scalar field‐sound pressure) and kinetic energy (vector field‐sound PM) portions. One pressure hydrophone determines acoustic potential energy density at a point. In principle, three PM sensors (displacement, velocity, or acceleration) directed along orthogonal axes describe the kinetic energy density at a point. For a single plane wave, the time‐averaged potential and kinetic field energies are identical everywhere. In multipath interference, however, potential and kinetic field energies at a point are partitioned unequally, depending mainly on relative signal phases. Thus, when pressure signals are in deep fade, abundant kinetic field signal energy may be available at that location. Performance benefits require a degree of uncorrelated fading between channels. The expectation of nearly uncorrelated fading is motivated from room theory. Performance benefits for sonar limited by independent Rayleigh fading are suggested by analogy to antifade radio. Average SNR can be improved by several decibels, holding time on target is multiplied manifold, and the bit error rate for data communication is reduced substantially.