Measurement of bistatic sea surface scattering with a parametric acoustic source

This work presents the results from a series of bistatic sea surface scattering experiments conducted in shallow water using a parametric acoustic array as a source and a receiver comprising a horizontal linear array. The experiments measured scattering at three frequencies (4, 8, and 15 kHz) and at three incident grazing angles (13º, 20º, and 30º). The measurements were made over a 5 day period during which a variety of environmental conditions were encountered. This paper provides an outline of the experiments and presents some results for the forward scattering strength. The results show that the wave direction has a significant effect on the surface forward scattering. At each incident grazing angle, the fluctuations of scattering strength due to environmental conditions decreases as the frequency increases.