Shallow water low frequency inversion on basis of range-dependent multi-layer geoacoustical model

Abstract

Sound propagation in shallow water is significantly influenced by geoacoustic properties. Estimating these geoacoustic parameters is essential for sound field analysis and sonar performance assessment. As a common practice, the seafloor is often treated as a single-layer or two-layer range-independent geoacoustic model to reduce the number of involved parameters. However, acoustic parameters inverted through these two geoacoustic models are typically limited in their applicability to a specific frequency range, posing challenges when applied across a broader frequency range. A range-dependent multi-layer geoacoustic model based on experimental measurements obtained with a sub-bottom profiler is proposed in this study. The inversion scheme combines three inversion methods to estimate geoacoustic parameters, considering the different sensitivities of geoacoustic parameters to different physical parameters within the acoustic field. Firstly, modal dispersion is used to invert the geoacoustic parameters of each layer, with the dispersion curve obtained through warping transform and the Wigner-Ville distribution. After that, both the localization using matched field processing and the dispersion curve fitting demonstrate the effectiveness of the inversion results for each layer, despite the peak of the probability distribution of sound speed in the first layer is broader than in others. Subsequently, matched field processing is employed to invert the geoacoustic parameters of the first layer. This method is based on the theory that as frequency increases, the depth of sound rays penetrating the seabed decreases, revealing changes in the first layer's sound speed with the seabed depth. Finally, bottom attenuation coefficients at different frequencies are inverted by the transmission loss (TL), and a fitting relationship between the attenuation coefficients and the frequencies is derived.In the discussion, the inversion results obtained using the range-dependent multi-layer geoacoustic model are compared with results estimated by the single-layer geoacoustic model. The findings indicate that the transmission loss (TL) error calculated by the range-dependent multi-layer geoacoustic model in this study is smaller than that calculated by the single-layer geoacoustic model, especially in the lower frequency band. The range-dependent multi-layer geoacoustic model proves to be suitable for a broader frequency range, providing better precision in explaining various acoustic phenomena.