A deep-water ray-based blind deconvolution for a near-surface source with a bottom-moored short-aperture vertical...

Area of Science:

• Ocean acoustics
• Signal processing
• Geophysics

Background:

• Estimating channel impulse response (CIR) is crucial for underwater acoustic systems.
• Conventional blind deconvolution methods struggle with performance degradation due to insufficient beam resolution, especially for near-surface sources.
• Bottom-moored vertical arrays are often used for acoustic data acquisition in deep water.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a novel deep-water ray-based blind deconvolution (DW-RBD) method.
• To enhance the performance of blind deconvolution when beam resolution is insufficient.
• To improve the estimation of channel impulse response for near-surface sources using vertical array data.

Main Methods:

• The proposed DW-RBD method utilizes information from multipath time-delays present in wideband beamforming outputs.
• A time-delay-related compensation term is derived using image theory.
• This compensation term is integrated into the original blind deconvolution framework to improve multipath separation.

Main Results:

• The DW-RBD method demonstrates enhanced multipath separation capabilities.
• Both simulated and experimental data confirm the effectiveness of the proposed DW-RBD technique.
• The method provides a viable alternative to conventional RBD when beam resolution is a limiting factor.

Conclusions:

• The developed DW-RBD method effectively estimates the channel impulse response for near-surface sources in deep water.
• The integration of multipath time-delay information significantly improves deconvolution performance.
• This approach offers a robust solution for acoustic channel estimation challenges in underwater environments.