Acoustic Ray Research Articles

Ex vivovalidation of non-invasive phase correction for transspine focused ultrasound: model performance and target feasibility.

To evaluate the feasibility of transspine focused ultrasound using simulation-based phase corrections from a CTderived ray acoustics model. &#xD;Approach. Bilateral transspine focusing was performed in ex vivo human vertebrae with a spine-specific ultrasound array. Ray acoustics-derived phase correction was compared to geometric focusing and a hydrophonecorrected gold standard. Planar hydrophone scans were recorded in the spinal canal and three metrics were calculated: target pressure, coronal and sagittal focal shift, and coronal and sagittal Sørensen-Dice similarity to the free field. Post hoc analysis was performed in silico to assess the impact of windows between vertebrae on focal shift.&#xD;Main results. Hydrophone correction reduced mean sagittal plane shift from 1.74 ± 0.82 mm to 1.40 ± 0.82 mm and mean coronal plane shift from 1.07 ± 0.63 mm to 0.54 ± 0.49 mm. Ray acoustics correction reduced mean sagittal plane and coronal plane shift to 1.63 ± 0.83 mm and 0.83 ± 0.60 mm, respectively. Hydrophone correction increased mean sagittal similarity from 0.48 ± 0.22 to 0.68 ± 0.19 and mean coronal similarity from 0.48 ± 0.23 to 0.70 ± 0.19. Ray acoustics correction increased mean sagittal and coronal similarity to 0.53 ± 0.25 and 0.55 ± 0.26, respectively. Target pressure was relatively unchanged across beamforming methods. In silico analysis found that, for some targets, unoccluded paths may have increased focal shift. &#xD;Significance. Gold standard phase correction significantly reduced coronal shift and significantly increased sagittal and coronal Sørensen-Dice similarity (p < 0.05). Ray acoustics-derived phase correction reduced sagittal and coronal shift and increased sagittal and coronal similarity but did not achieve statistical significance. Across beamforming methods, mean focal shift was comparable to MRI resolution, suggesting that transspine focusing is possible with minimal correction in favorable targets. Future work will explore the mitigation of acoustic windows with anti-focus control points.&#xD.

Study and Analysis of the Thunder Source Location Error Based on Acoustic Ray-Tracing

Error analysis and estimation of thunder source location results is a prerequisite for obtaining accurate location results of thunder sources, which is of great significance for a deeper understanding of the physical process of lightning channel discharges. Most of the thunder source location algorithms are based on the simplified model of the straight-line propagation of acoustic waves to determine the location of the thunder source; however, the acoustic wave is affected by the inhomogeneity of the atmosphere medium in the propagation process and its acoustic ray will be bent. Temperature and humidity are the main factors affecting the vertical distribution of the velocity of sound in the atmosphere, therefore, it is necessary to study the changes in location errors under the models of uniform vertical distribution of temperature only and uniform vertical distribution of humidity only. This paper focuses on the theory of acoustic ray-tracing in neglecting the presence of the wind and the acoustic attenuation and the theoretical derivation of the location error of thunder source inversion for the three models is carried out by using MATLAB R2019b programming. Then, simulation analysis and comparative study on the variation law of thunder source location error with the height of the source, ground temperature, ground humidity, and array position under the three models are carried out. The results of the study show that the maximum location error can be obtained from the straight-line propagation model, the location error obtained from the model of uniform vertical distribution of temperature only is the second, and the location error obtained from the model of uniform vertical distribution of humidity only is the least and can be negligible compared to the first two models. In the trend of error variation, the variation of location error with temperature and humidity is relatively flat in the first two models; however, the variation of location error with the height of the thunder source is more drastic, which can be more than 80%. The location error obtained from the array inversion closer to the thunder source increases linearly with the height of the thunder source, the location error obtained from the more distant array inversion shows a fast-decreasing trend at the height of the thunder source from 500 to 3500 m, and a flat trend above 3500 m. The location error varies relatively smoothly with the height of the thunder source, the ground temperature, and the ground humidity in the model of uniform vertical distribution of humidity only. In addition, the position of the array also has an important effect on lightning location. The further the horizontal distance from the source, the greater the location error will be obtained in the first two models, and when the thunder source is at a low height and detected at a long distance, the location error will be very large, so relevant data should be modified in actual observation.

On improving sound source localization in the wind tunnel

When traveling in an open-jet wind tunnel, the path of an acoustic wave is affected by the flow causing a shift of source positions in acoustical maps of phased arrays outside the flow. In this paper, we start by comparing several well-known approaches to correct travel times between microphones and assumed sources, used, for example, by beamforming algorithms in such an environment. The methods under consideration include the original 1D-Amiet/Bahr formulation, a standard 2.5D-planar approach that assumes the constancy of angular frequency and wave-number-vector components along a plane, and finally, a 3D-ray-tracing method. Common to the former two of these methods is the assumption that the boundary layer of the flow, the so-called shear layer, is infinitely thin and refracts the acoustical ray, whereas, in principle, the latter algorithm allows for an arbitrary (but sufficiently smooth) vector field modeling the flow. Going through these methods, we discuss travel-time results relative to each other and in terms of differences in source localization using beamforming maps. In particular, we model the flow of an existing wind tunnel and discuss results of real-world measurements comparing the 2.5D-planar approach with the 3D-ray-tracing method.

Prediction and observation of regional infrasound from the OSIRIS REx re-entry capsule

Infrasonic signals produced by bolides and space debris passing through atmosphere are frequently observed at notable stand-off distances. The acoustic energy radiated from such objects is dominated by the aero-acoustic Mach cone which exhibits a highly directional radiation pattern dependent on the velocity of the object relative to the surrounding atmosphere. Recently, a mapping of the Mach cone geometry into acoustic ray tracing methods has enabled efficient regional simulation of infrasonic ensonification from such sources. In September 2023, the OSIRIS REx sample capsule returned to Earth as part of a NASA supported asteroid study and a number of institutions deployed sensors to measure geophysical signatures of the event. The anticipated capsule trajectory was combined with historical atmospheric data for September in the western United States to predict likely regional ensonification during re-entry. Los Alamos National Laboratory infrasound experts deployed microbarometer arrays in locations predicted to be ensonified and were able to identify signals with arrival times and direction-of-arrival consistent with the capsule re-entry. An overview of the predictions, field deployments, and identified signals will be presented.

A theoretical model of excess attenuation of acoustic signals propagating under cracked sea-ice landscapes.

The Arctic sheet is transitioning from a continuous cover of thick multi-year ice to a fragmented landscape of thin young ice. If the type of acoustic transmission allows repetitive interaction of rays with the sea surface, in the fragmented scenario acoustic rays will undergo a random sequence of reflections from water or sea-ice interfaces. Calm sea conditions in the water channels between the ice floes (leads) and the smooth, flat surface of the young ice bottom reduce scattering due to interface roughness, resulting only in scattering due to inhomogeneity in surface reflectivity. Using an idealized framework, this study investigates the extent to which the mid- to high-frequency underwater acoustic propagation is altered due to repetitive interactions of acoustic signals with a sea surface consisting of a random distribution of ice sheets and leads. An expression for the coherent field (the acoustic field averaged over an ensemble of realizations of sea-ice distributions) was derived from theory. Any deviation from a homogeneous surface condition (either by randomly adding ice slabs in a free ice surface or by including leads in a fully ice-covered sea surface) leads to an excess attenuation of the coherent field. Results are validated by numerical simulations.

Long-range LBL underwater acoustic navigation considering Earth curvature and Doppler effect

The accuracy of underwater acoustic navigation is significantly influenced by geometry configuration and systematic errors coming from geophysical environment. Long baseline (LBL) systems exhibit superior positioning precision than other acoustic navigation systems, primarily attributable to the better Geometric Dilution of Precision (GDOP). However, the geometry configuration tends to degrade when the underwater vehicle is far away from the seafloor beacons. Factors such as acoustic ray bending error, Doppler effect and Earth curvature may seriously affect the navigation accuracy. To address these issues, we present a robust Kalman filter with systematic error compensation for long-range LBL systems. Firstly, a reversed acoustic ray tracking method is proposed for a unique phenomenon in acoustic wave propagation. Following that, we construct an acoustic positioning model with a time bias parameter, to weaken the impact of Doppler effect on acoustic ranging. This additional parameter was estimated with the state of the user vehicle in real time. At last, an observation equation of pressure gauge considering Earth curvature is presented for depth constraint. Long-range LBL experiments conducted in the South China Sea is employed to validate the performance of the proposed methods, taking the positioning results of inverted ultra-short baseline (iUSBL) system as reference. The results show that the proposed method outperform traditional method with a decrease of about 60 % in the three-dimensional root mean square (3DRMS) of navigation errors. With mentioned three improvements, the 3DRMS of the long-range LBL system with the longest distance of 20 km from the beacon center is less than 14 m. These findings can provide theoretical basis for other long-range LBL systems.

Visualization of Demodulated Sound Based on Sequential Acoustic Ray Tracing with Self-Demodulation in Parametric Array Loudspeakers

With the development of acoustic simulation methods in recent decades, it has become feasible to simulate the sound pressure distribution of loudspeakers before actually setting physical speakers and measuring the sound field. The parametric array loudspeaker (PAL) has attracted attention due to its sharp directivity and unique applications. However, the sound reproduced by PALs is generated by the nonlinear interactions of ultrasound in the air, which makes it difficult to simulate the reproduced sound of a PAL with low computational load. Focusing on the sharp directivity of ultrasound, we extended conventional acoustic ray-tracing methods to consider the self-demodulation phenomenon of PALs. In this study, we developed a visualization method for the demodulated sound of a PAL. Specifically, the demodulated sound pressure distribution can be simulated to estimate and visualize the area covered by the reproduced sound of PAL before setting a real PAL. In the proposed method, acoustic rays were generated sequentially to express the generation of demodulated sound. Therefore, the proposed method is expected to simulate the demodulated sound of a PAL with acceptable accuracy and low calculation complexity. Quantitative evaluation between simulation results and practical measurement has been carried out, and the results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Ultra-fast calculation method of incident angle based on underwater acoustic round-trip positioning

In underwater acoustic round-trip positioning, the incident angle calculation in constant gradient acoustic ray tracing significantly hinders the efficiency of positioning calculation. To address this issue, we proposed an ultra-fast calculation method for determining incident angle based on underwater acoustic round-trip positioning. Specifically, the method employs the k-mean++ clustering algorithm to streamline the sound velocity profile. Additionally, a function formula for the incident angle is constructed, and its partial derivative with respect to Snell's constant is derived. Finally, Newton's method is applied to iteratively calculate the incident angles of the signal emission and reception, respectively. The simulation test results demonstrate that the proposed method reduces the positioning calculation time by 80.123%, 80.105%, 80.136%, and 80.104% on four transponders compared to the traditional method. In the field experiment, the proposed method is superior to the traditional method by 81.693% in positioning calculation time. These findings indicate the significant superiority of the proposed method in positioning calculation efficiency compared to the traditional method.

Measurement the 3D temperature distribution in the combustion zone using acoustic tomography and nolinear wavefont tracing

A non-invasive temperature measurement method in three dimensions is proposed to reconstruct the three-dimensional temperature. It relies on the use of nonlinear acoustic travel-time tomography, which incorporates acoustic path tracing, Gaussian kernel function, and modified Tikhonov regularization. Sound signals can be distorted due to large average temperature gradients and oscillatory release of heat in the combustion region. The effective acoustic signal is extracted based on spectral subtraction to evaluate the sound propagation time under distorted signals. The analysis of experimental errors indicates that the proposed acoustic pyrometry method has an average relative error of less than 15% compared to the time-averaged temperature measured by thermocouples. This result verifies the efficacy of the method when it comes to accurately reconstructing the temperature field in the combustion area. The reduction in error is attributed to the consideration of acoustic ray tracing within the proposed method.

Simulation-corrected focusing to the vertebral canal

Phased arrays have long been used to deliver focused ultrasound to the brain, but applications in the spinal cord remain comparatively unexplored. This is largely due to the aberrating effect of vertebral bone on the incoming wavefront, where variable density and complex geometry distort the pressure field in the canal. For controlled focusing, phase and amplitude corrections must therefore be calculated in advance. Here, we validate a previously-developed ray acoustics model for transvertebral focusing with a bilateral spine-specific array. Benchtop trials were conducted with ex vivo human vertebrae and ray acoustics beamforming was compared to a geometric baseline and hydrophone-corrected gold standard. Planar shift in the 90% contour was evaluated via raster scans of the sagittal and coronal planes. Ray acoustics correction reduced mean sagittal shift from 1.76 ± 0.79 mm to 1.63 ± 0.86 mm and reduced mean coronal shift from 0.99 ± 0.54 mm to 0.76 ± 0.63 mm, while hydrophone correction produced mean sagittal and coronal shifts of 1.40 ± 0.83 mm and 0.53 ± 0.47 mm, respectively. Large variance in simulation-corrected results is hypothesized to stem from nonuniform attenuation and intervertebral acoustic windows, a possibility that will be explored in future in silico and benchtop work.

Geoacoustic inversion using 3D modal rays on the New England Shelf Break

During the Seabed Characterization Experiment in 2021 (SBCEX21), hydrophones deployed on the seabed of the New England Shelf Break recorded acoustic signals from SUS charge explosions. Acoustic data from one of these TOSSIT hydrophones displays evident modal structures which cannot be fully captured with 2D propagation models. In this presentation, 3D acoustic modal ray tracing is shown to provide a stronger match for recorded modal travel times, and is used to invert for geoacoustic parameters of the seabed. Performance of 2D and 3D modal propagation models are presented, and limitations of the methods are shown in the context of large parameter space inversion efforts. [This research is supported by The Office of Naval Research.]

Performance of a computational Bayesian approach for active localization of a mobile scatterer in a refractive ocean environment

Underwater active acoustic systems that employ limited aperture arrays suffer from reduced processing gain and poor angular resolution, thereby hindering inferential objectives such as localization and tracking. Accurate localization is further challenged by the short conventional coherence-time associated with mobile bodies and dynamic environments. A computational Bayesian approach is presented and expanded here, for joint inference of range, depth, and speed of a submerged mobile scatterer in a refractive and multipath environment [Barros and Gendron, JASA-EL, 2019]. The Gibbs-sampling based approach infers the joint posterior probability density (PPD) of the pressure field wave vectors associated with the angle/Doppler spread arrivals and then maps their joint PPD to the target state joint PPD through acoustic ray interpolation. Performance analysis at high frequencies and relevant ranges using simulated acoustic fields are presented. The posterior uncertainty is investigated as a function of aperture and SNR, and we summarize the PPD using posterior credible intervals. A bound on posterior variance due to uncertainty in sound speed is provided and explored using profiles from the HYCOM database.

Prediction of regional infrasound produced by supersonic sources using a ray-based Mach cone source.

The geometry of the Mach cone produced by a supersonic source is analyzed and mapped into initial conditions used in acoustic ray tracing. The resulting source model is combined with spherical geometry ray tracing methods to enable propagation simulations for infrasonic signals produced by bolides, space debris, rockets, aircraft, and other fast-than-sound sources out to typical infrasonic observation distances of hundreds or thousands of kilometers. Idealized linear and parabolic trajectories typical of bolides and rockets, respectively, are used to demonstrate the calculation of regional infrasonic signals produced by such sources and characteristics of the radiated infrasonic waves are found to vary strongly with the geometry of the trajectory and atmospheric structure. Predicted regional infrasonic signals are compared with those observed from a November 2020 bolide that passed over Scandinavia using a combination of institutionally maintained infrasound stations and "citizen scientist" data from the Raspberry Shake data repository.

Variation in the Reflection Height of VLF/LF Transmitter Signals in the D‐Region Ionosphere and the Possible Source: A 2018 Meteoroid in Hokkaido, Japan

AbstractSeveral studies have examined ionospheric variation associated with meteorites, meteoroids, or meteors based on Global Satellite Navigation System total electron content observations. However, there have been few quantitative studies of the D‐region of the ionosphere (60–90 km), which is associated with meteoroids. We investigated variation in the D‐region during the passage of a meteoroid over northeastern Hokkaido, Japan, at 11:55:55 UT on 18 October 2018, using very low‐frequency (VLF, 3–30 kHz) and low‐frequency (LF, 30–300 kHz) signals observed by three transmitters [JJY (40 kHz), JJY (60 kHz), and JJI (22.2 kHz)], at Rikubetsu, Japan. Periodic variation of 100–200 s was observed in the VLF and LF amplitudes upon arrival of the acoustic wave. The vertical seismic velocity of Hi‐net and F‐net data also showed acoustic waves. Although the main period of the acoustic wave was 0.1–0.5 s in the seismic data, a longer period component (100–200 s) remained during propagation up to the D‐region ionosphere. The estimated velocity of the acoustic waves was ∼340 m/s on the ground according to the Hi‐net seismic data. The acoustic wave originated near the endpoint (25 km altitude) of the meteoroid trajectory. Based on the observed propagation time of the acoustic waves and ray tracing results, the acoustic waves propagated obliquely from near the endpoint of the meteoroid trajectory up to a D‐region height (about ∼90 km altitude), south of the Rikubetsu receiver.

Acoustic tomographic inversion of 3D temperature fields with mesoscale anomaly in the South China Sea

Acoustic tomographic inversion is based on travel times measured along the transmission paths between all station pairs to reconstruct three-dimensional temperature structures with mesoscale anomalies. In this study, tomographic simulation experiments were designed based on the Hybrid Coordinate Ocean Model (HYCOM) reanalysis data to reconstruct mesoscale phenomena from travel time data obtained from five, seven, and nine stations in the South China Sea over a domain of 100 × 100 km. The travel times for each station pair were calculated in the vertical section using the Bellhop acoustic ray simulation method. Six Empirical orthogonal function (EOF) modes of sound speed along the sound transmission paths in a vertical slice were used to formulate the inversion equations. The horizontal-slice distributions of temperature in the tomography domain were reconstructed using the grid-segmented method for each depth layer. For station-to-station distances greater than 100 km, the performance of inversion was best for the seven-station case rather than for the nine-station case, with the highest horizontal resolution of the three cases. This case study concluded that the seven-station case rather than the nine-station case provided an optimal station number for reconstructing the three-dimensional temperature fields.

Prediction of Water Temperature Based on Graph Neural Network in a Small-Scale Observation via Coastal Acoustic Tomography

Coastal acoustic tomography (CAT) is a remote sensing technique that utilizes acoustic methodologies to measure the dynamic characteristics of the ocean in expansive marine domains. This approach leverages the speed of sound propagation to derive vital ocean parameters such as temperature and salinity by inversely estimating the acoustic ray speed during its traversal through the aquatic medium. Concurrently, analyzing the speed of different acoustic waves in their round-trip propagation enables the inverse estimation of dynamic hydrographic features, including flow velocity and directional attributes. An accurate forecasting of inversion answers in CAT rapidly contributes to a comprehensive analysis of the evolving ocean environment and its inherent characteristics. Graph neural network (GNN) is a new network architecture with strong spatial modeling and extraordinary generalization. We proposed a novel method: employing GraphSAGE to predict inversion answers in OAT, using experimental datasets collected at the Huangcai Reservoir for prediction. The results show an average error 0.01% for sound speed prediction and 0.29% for temperature predictions along each station pairwise. This adequately fulfills the real-time and exigent requirements for practical deployment.

Radiated power and acoustic convergence zone properties of the vibration of the shaft-hull system in an ocean acoustic channel

To compute the vibroacoustic radiation of the shaft-hull system in an ocean acoustic channel, we apply the finite element method/boundary element method. For the convergence zone effect, we use the beam displacement ray normal mode to examine the profile of the speed of sound in seawater. To evaluate the radiation property of the system, we propose the concept of effective radiated acoustic power, where only reversing acoustic rays and seabed totally reflected rays are included. We reveal that the far-field radiation can be approximately inferred from the effective radiated acoustic power. Effective radiated acoustic power can be utilized to extract the main radiating modes, which dominate the far-field radiation. The axial force induces vibration, including breathing and bending modes, resulting in the highest peak of the radiated sound pressure level (SPL). The lateral and vertical excitation results in horizontal and vertical bending modes, respectively, and the SPL in convergence zones induced laterally are higher than those induced vertically.

A Novel Algorithm for Directional Scattering in Acoustic Ray Tracers

It is vital to consider acoustic scattering when using geometrical acoustic simulation techniques, such as ray tracing. However, there are few methods for modelling scattering, and most rely on strong assumptions of uniformity on the distribution of scattered energy. In this paper, a model for directional scattering in ray tracers is presented. The model is based on an idealized model of a 1D scatterer, which is then used to extend the most commonly used scattering algorithm in ray tracers today. The developed algorithm is implemented in a ray tracer and tested to evaluate its performance compared to existing methods. It is found that the directional scattering algorithm can be used to replicate measured effects on room acoustic parameters caused by changes in the orientation of 1D scatterers.

Two-Step Correction Based on In-Situ Sound Speed Measurements for USBL Precise Real-Time Positioning

The ultra-short baseline (USBL) positioning system has been widely used for autonomous and remotely operated vehicle (ARV) positioning in marine resource surveying and ocean engineering fields due to its flexible installation and portable operation. Errors related to the sound speed are a critical factor limiting the positioning performance. The conventional strategy adopts a fixed sound velocity profile (SVP) to correct the spatial variation, especially in the vertical direction. However, SVP is actually time-varying, and ignoring this kind of variation will lead to a worse estimation of ARVs’coordinates. In this contribution, we propose a two-step sound speed correction method, where, firstly, the deviation due to the acoustic ray bending effect is corrected by the depth-based ray-tracing policy with the fixed SVP. Then, the temporal variation of SVP is considered, and the fixed SVP is adaptively adjusted according to the in situ sound velocity (SV) measurements provided by the conductivity–temperature–depth (CTD) sensor equipped at the ARV. The proposed method is verified by semi-physical simulation and sea-trail dataset in the South China Sea. When compared to the fixed-SVP method, average positioning accuracy with the resilient SVP be improved by 8%, 21%, and 26% in the east, north, and up directions, respectively. The results demonstrate that the proposed method can efficiently improve the adaptability of sound speed observations and deliver better performance in USBL real-time positioning.

Impact of internal waves on underwater acoustic propagation

The propagation of internal waves in the ocean can produce significant fluctuations in the local sound speed field. Understanding how these fluctuations affect acoustic propagation is an area of considerable interest in underwater acoustics. Previous studies have indicated that large fluctuations (of the order of 20 dB) in transmission loss (TL) of acoustic waves can occur due to focusing and defocusing effects as the acoustic waves propagate through an internal wave. This work looks to extend some of these studies by exploring the frequency and directional dependence of these fluctuations through the implementation of a 3D acoustic model (FOR3D) suitable for modelling low frequency (&amp;lt;1 kHz) acoustic propagation. The study utilises sound speed data produced using the non-hydrostatic model MITgcm, simulating a nonlinear three-dimensional internal wave field that was verified using in situ mooring observations. By also considering results from a study utilising an acoustic ray model (Bellhop3D) on the same data, this work gives a comprehensive picture of the internal wave induced TL fluctuations across a range of acoustic frequencies.