Design of periodic signals for acoustic system identification using hard-limiting transducers

Abstract

Using periodic signals for underwater acoustic system identification enables signal averaging to be used to increase the signal-to-noise ratio of the received signal. The desired properties of such a signal are partially determined by the properties of the electroacoustic transducers used. This paper shows how to design signals to give the maximum receiver signal-to-noise ratio when the desired source signal is known but the source transducer has an ideal hard-limiting characteristic. In such cases, it is almost always better to generate a signal different from the desired one and to correct for the difference (using linear signal processing) in the receiver. Examples of such designs and the improvements to be gained will be given.