In this study in order to simulate the acoustic waves, Ray Theory and Normal Mode models are used. These methods are analyzed using MATLAB simulation tool / differences between two models are examined and a region with a known bottom profile and sound velocity profiles is investigated. The Ray Theory is used in acoustic systems which is the one of the applications of wave modeling. Ray theory is solved with standard Ordinary Differential Equation solvers and normal mode with finite element method. Different bottom profiles and sound velocity profiles previously taken are interpolated to form an environment and examined in the case study. in the case study.

Detection and tracking of signals used in sonar applications in noisy environment is the focus of this thesis. We have concentrated on the low Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) case where the conventional detection methods are not applicable. Furthermore, it is assumed that the duty cycle is relatively low. In the problem that is of concern the carrier frequency, pulse repetition interval (PRI) and the existence of the signal are not known. The unknown character of PRI makes the problem challenging since it means that the signal exists at some unknown intervals. A recursive, Bayesian track-before-detect (TBD) filter using particle filter based methods is proposed to solve the concerned problem. The data used by the particle filter is the magnitude of a complex spectrum in complex Gaussian noise. The existence variable is added in the design of the filter to determine the existence of the signal. The evolution of the signal state is modeled by a linear stochastic process. The filter estimates the signal state including the carrier frequency and PRI. Simulations are done under different scenarios where the carrier frequency, PRI and the existence of the signal varies. The results demonstrate that the algorithm presented in this thesis can detect signals which cannot be detected by conventional methods. Besides detection, the tracking performance of the filter is satisfying.

Natural hydrocarbon seeps harbor distinctive geological, chemical, and biological features in the marine environment. This thesis verified remote sensing signatures of seeps using in-situ observation and repeated collections of satellite imagery. Bubble streams in the Gulf of Mexico water column from four natural seep sites on the upper continental slope were imaged by a side-scan sonar, which was operated from a submarine near the seafloor, and by acoustic profilers, which were operated from surface ships. These data were correlated with sea surface slicks imaged by Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) on the RADARSAT satellite. Comparing non-oily bubble streams from rapidly venting mud volcanoes with oily bubble streams from shallow deposits of gas hydrate showed that they produced notably different signatures. Non-oily bubbles produced high backscatter on the side-scan sonar records, but were difficult to detect with the acoustic profilers. Oily bubbles from hydrate deposits produced acoustic shadows on the side-scan sonar records. The oily bubbles generated clear signatures extending from the seafloor to the near surface on the acoustic profile records. RADARSAT SAR images verified the presence of surface oil slicks over the hydrate deposits, but not over the mud volcanoes. This indicates that SAR imagery will not be able to capture every oil and gas seep in a region because non-oily bubble streams do not create surface oil slicks. A total of 113 natural oily seep sources were identified based on surface slicks in eleven SAR images collected over the northern continental slope. A persistence analysis verified that SAR is a dependable tool for capturing oil slicks because 93.5% of the slick sources identified in the 2001 images were corroborated with slicks in the 2002 images. The sources ranged in depth from 100 to 2000 m and 79% of the sources were in 900 meters or greater of water. Seventy-six percent of the seep sources were associated with salt less than 1500 m below the seafloor and none of the sources were located in the bottom of salt withdrawal basins. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) proved to be a useful tool in these analyses.

Sound wave has much better transmission in ocean environment than electromagnetic waves, therefore sonar systems are widely applied in underwater investigations. However, not only the target signal is received by the sonar but also the noise from different directions. The noise will affect the performance of the sonar, so the understanding of ocean ambient is an important issue both in academic study and military applications. The ambient noise data of this research was collected by a passive acoustic recording system deployed in the southwest sea of Taiwan, along with the information of wind velocity in the experimented area. The influence on noise level fluctuations by the variation of the wind velocity was first discussed in light of correlation analysis. The fluctuations were expressed in terms of statistic distribution, mean value, standard deviation in different time series. As results, 500 Hz and 1.5k Hz were saturated by high levels signal from unknown sources in spring and summer, so the average sound levels were higher than in fall and winter, about 10 dB and 5 dB higher for 500 Hz and 1.5k Hz respectively. In seasonal analysis, 2.4k and 3.6k Hz have quite stable the mean levels and their standard deviations were around 3 dB. Especially, the noise level of 3.6 Hz has the least fluctuation throughout the year than any other frequencies analyzed. It was also observed that the noise level was decreased with the increase of frequency. Calculated by linear regression, this research worked out the estimation equation for the ambient noise level at high wind speed. However, the estimated values are higher than the measured data, it is due to the distribution of wind velocity. The wind data in this study was skewed towards the lower velocity, consequently the predicted values were overestimated.

The normal procedure for the detection of underwater stationary targets is mainly by the application of side-scan sonar. In addition, the identification of targets within the side-scan sonar imagery is primarily based on the visual observation of the operator. Due to its complexity and poor effectiveness, the visual observation procedure was gradually been substituted by numerical analysis procedures and programs. The purpose of the current investigation was dedicated to the development of an automatic image analysis program for the detection and identification of cubic concrete artificial reefs (2 m x 2 m x 2m) in the south-western coastal area off Taiwan. The major components and methodologies of the program include: (1)Image acquisition; side-scan sonar at 500 kHz and slant range at 75 m. (2)Feature extraction; grey level co-occurrence matrix. (3)Feature Classification; unsupervised Bayesian classifier. (4)Target identification; cluster analysis. (5)Target properties analysis, includes circumference, area, central coordinates and quantity of the targets. Program verification and optimal parameters determination were conducted with a sonograph (650 ¡Ñ 650 pixels) acquired at the Chey-Ding artificial reef site off Kaohsiung County. Feature functions employed in this program include entropy, homogeneity, and mean value. The identification accuracy can reach 93% at the most. In addition, the number of artificial reefs estimated by the program was within 9 to 20, while the actual number is 15. A realistic evaluation of this program was conducted with a sonograph (2048 ¡Ñ 6050 pixels) acquired at Fang-Liau artificial reef site off Pyngdong County. In addition to the cubic reefs, the targets at this site include cross-shaped artificial reefs with dimensions less than the cubic reefs. The sonograph was divided into smaller blocks with dimensions of 2048 x 550 pixels during evaluation. The results showed that each block can be evaluated based on the value of the seed point obtained by cluster analysis. The seed point which fells between 20.6 and 24.4 indicates that there are cubic reefs existed. Between 15.3 and 17.4 indicates that there are targets with smaller dimensions (i.e., crossed reefs) existed which can not be identified properly. Between 10.1 and 10.9, there is no target existed on the seafloor. The results indicated that the number of targets identified is between 122 and 240. According to the results of this investigation, the automatic image analysis program can improve the detection and identification of stationary targets within side-scan sonar imagery.

This research seeks to expand the role of variational and adjoint processing methods into segments of the sonar, radar, and nondestructive testing communities where they have not yet been widely introduced. First, synthetic aperture reconstruction is expressed in terms of the adjoint operator. Many, if not all, practical imaging modalities can be traced back to this general result, as the adjoint is the foundation for backprojection-type algorithms. Next, active surfaces are developed in the context of the Helmholtz equation for the cases of opaque scatterers (i.e., with no interior field) embedded in free space, and penetrable scatterers embedded in a volume which may be bounded. The latter are demonstrated numerically using closed-form solutions based on spherical harmonics. The former case was chosen as the basis for a laboratory experiment using Lamb waves in an aluminum plate. Lamb wave propagation in plates is accurately described by the Helmholtz equation, where the field quantity is the displacement potential. However, the boundary conditions associated with the displacement potential formulation of Lamb waves are incompatible with the shape gradient derived for the Helmholtz equation, except for very long or very short wavelengths. Lastly, optical flow is used to solve a new and unique problem in the field of synthetic aperture sonar. Areas of acoustic focusing and dilution attributable to refraction can sometimes resemble the natural bathymetry of the ocean floor. The difference is often visually indistinguishable, so it is desirable to have a means of detecting these transient refractive effects without having to repeat the survey. Optical flow proved to be effective for this purpose, and it is shown that the parameters used to control the algorithm can be linked to known properties of the data collection and scattering physics.

Στην παρούσα έρευνα αναπτύχθηκε μια γρήγορη μεθοδολογία για την ποσοτικοποίηση των αλιευτικών ιχνών από ηχογραφίες ηχοβολιστή πλευρικής σάρωσης. Πεδίο έρευνας ήταν δυο γειτονικές περιοχές, ενός αλιευτικού πεδίου μηχανοτρατών πυθμένα με υδραετούς («πόρτες») στον Πατραϊκό κόλπο. Οι υψηλής ανάλυσης ηχογραφίες αποκάλυψαν αλιευτικά ίχνη στον πυθμένα από τη σύρση των «πορτών» του αλιευτικού εξοπλισμού και υβώματα βιογενούς προέλευσης (biogenic mounds). Η περιοχή έρευνας ταξινομήθηκε σε επιμέρους περιοχές με βάση τους ακουστικούς τύπους που προέκυψαν από την ερμηνεία των ηχογραφιών. Η στατιστική ανάλυση των αλιευτικών ιχνών περιέλαβε τον υπολογισμό: 1) πυκνοτήτων ανά μονάδα επιφανείας, 2) μέσων διευθύνσεων ανά μονάδα επιφανείας, 3) συνολικής μέσης διεύθυνσης, και 4) συνολικού μήκους. Χρησιμοποιήθηκαν τα λογισμικά ArcMap® και Matlab®. Τα αποτελέσματα αποκαλύπτουν την ύπαρξη έντονης αλιευτικής δραστηριότητας στη περιοχή έρευνας, η οποία φαίνεται να ελέγχεται από την βυθομετρία και την παρουσία των βιογενών υβωμάτων. / This study suggests a promising, reliable and rapid methodology for the quantification of trawl marks from sidescan sonar records. Two adjacent sites were surveyed, from an otter trawl fishing ground in the Gulf of Patras. The high resolution sidescan sonar records revealled trawl marks made by the doors of the otter trawls as well as biogenic mounds. The study area was classified on the basis of the acoustic types resulted from the interpretation of the sidescan records. The statistical analysis of the trawl marks included the calculation of: 1) densities per surface block 2) mean directions per surface block, 3) total mean direction and 4) total length. ArcMap® and Matlab® softwares were used. The results reveal the existence of intensive fishing activity, which seems to be controled by the bathymetry and the presence of biogenic mounds.

Fledermaus is software where different kind of analysis with spatial data can be done. The main area where to use Fledermaus is related to hydrographical surveys. This study is aimed to test and analyse the way Swedish Maritime Administration (Sjöfartsverket) uses Fledermaus. Through step by step explaining how to do when measuring sea bed conditions from a vessel, this text is possible to use as a manual for the applications that are mentioned in this report. Another thing that is treated is the squat effect that belongs to vessel dynamic motions. Test of visualization that concerning squat in Fledermaus is done, but with a negative result when squat in a perspective to show motions in height that can be up to about a metre is very hard in a terrain model of thousands of metres. By further tests by arranging the input data, several interesting diagrams have been created through Microsoft Excel where graphs show that the depths are affecting the squat effect. This is showed in same diagram but with two different scales to show the relationship between how a point at the vessel moves in height compared to the depth under the vessel when the vessel is navigating in the sea. / Fledermaus är en programvara där olika analyser med rumsliga data kan genomföras. Största användningsområdet är att använda Fledermaus till mätningar som är relaterade till sjömätning. Den här studien är inriktad till att testa och analysera applikationer som Sjöfartsverket använder sig av i Fledermaus. Genom att steg för steg förklara hur Fledermaus ska användas när bottenförhållanden ska mätas sett från ett fartyg, så blir texten även möjlig att använda som en manual till de applikationer i Fledermaus som är nämnda i denna rapport. Det andra som behandlas är squateffekten som tillhör ett fartygs dynamiska rörelser. Test av visualisering som behandlar squat i Fledermaus är genomförd, dock med negativt resultat då squat i ett perspektiv med att visa rörelser i höjd som kan uppgå till runt en meter är väldigt svårt i en terrängmodell som sträcker sig tusentals meter. Dock genom vidare tester genom behandling av indata, har flertalet intressanta diagram skapats genom Microsoft Excel där kurvor visar att djupet inverkar på squateffekten. Detta visas genom att i samma diagram fast med två olika skalor visa förhållandet mellan hur en punkt på båten rör sig i höjd jämfört med att djupet under fartyget ändras då fartyget gör fart genom vattnet.

Since World War I, the area of acoustic undersea warfare has witnessed several research activities targeting the development of advanced systems to accurately detect and localize underwater moving targets. One of the main categories of these systems is the passive sound navigation and ranging (SONAR) that searches for the location of the ships and submarines by listening to the radiated noise produced by their propellers, machinery, and flow dynamics. The performance of the passive sonar highly depends on the particular array signal processing algorithms used in practice. Presently, one of the main challenges is to accurately estimate the target direction of arrival (DOA) in severe underwater environments. This thesis is proposed to enhance the DOA estimation in two distinct applications. This first application is to improve the spatial resolution of the uniform linear towed arrays. This is done by applying new spatial extrapolation techniques called 2D- and 3D- fast orthogonal search (FOS) for both uniform linear and rectangular arrays, respectively. The presented methods show better performance than the conventional methods with respect to signal to noise ratio (SNR), number of snapshots and angular separation. Moreover it reduces the computational complexity required by the spatial extrapolation methods based on linear prediction approach. The other application concerns with developing a new DOA estimation that provides better spatial spectrum than the one provided by conventional beamforming (CBF) when a nonuniform linear array of directional frequency analysis and recording (DIFAR) sonobuoys is employed. The introduced technique or the so called fourth order cumulant beamforming (FOCBF) and shows an outstanding performance compared to CBF especially in low SNR. Furthermore, a warping FOC-BF (WFOC-BF) method obtained by augmenting a warping beamforming technique with FOC-BF is proposed to reduce the required computational complexity by FOC-BF while preserving the same performance. / Thesis (Ph.D, Electrical & Computer Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2012-06-27 14:59:33.941

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