Underwater acoustic pulse propagation using the Recursive Ray Acoustics (RRA) Algorithm

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to demonstrate the ability to predict the pulse shape at the location of a receiver in the ocean for a given transmitted pulse and ocean medium model by using the Recursive Ray Acoustics (RRA) Algorithm together with the Linear Space-Variant Ocean (LSVOCN) computer program. In addition the effects of different ocean environments on the received pulse shape are examined. In this thesis the ocean medium is treated as a linear time-invariant, space-variant filter. The RRA Algorithm is used as subroutine to calculate the spatial impulse response or complex frequency response of the ocean-medium filter. The LSVOCN comput program, which incorporates the coupling equations, couples the transmitted electrical signal, and the transmit and receive apertures to the ocean-medium filter to predict the received pulse. Computer simulation test case results show that the LSVOCN computer program is able to predict the received pulse correctly and that the shape of the received pulse is strongly affected by different ocean-medium environments.