Interference of echo-signals from spherical scatterers located near the seabed

Abstract

The paper investigates the impact of the seabed on the echo signal from spherical scatterers. The seabed is modeled as a liquid absorbing half-space. The transmitter/receiver is located in the water half-space. The distance between the transmitter/receiver and the scatterer is assumed to be large compared to the wavelengths of acoustic waves in water and the seafloor. Numerical results are obtained for acoustically rigid spherical scatterers of the same radius. Interaction between the scatterers is not taken into account. The echo signal from a single sphere over a wide frequency range is computed using a method proposed by R.H. Hackman and G.S. Sammelmann, with a crucial step being the computation of the scattering coefficients of the sphere. Asymptotic formulae obtained using the saddle-point method are used in the paper to compute these coefficients. The obtained asymptotic expressions for the scattering coefficients of the sphere significantly reduce the number of summands in the formula for the form function of the echo signal.