Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Echo

Echo

The human ear cannot distinguish between two sources of sound if they happen to reach within a specific time interval, typically 0.1 seconds apart. More than this, and they are perceived as separate sources.
Imagine the sound is reflected back to the ears. Assuming that the source is very close to the human, the difference between hearing the two sounds—the emitted sound and the reflected sound—may be more than the minimum time for perceiving distinct sounds. If this is the case,...

Sound Waves: Interference

Sound Waves: Interference

Sound waves can be modeled either as longitudinal waves, wherein the molecules of the medium oscillate around an equilibrium position, or as pressure waves. When two identical waves from the same source superimpose on each other, the combination of two crests or two troughs results in amplitude reinforcement known as constructive interference. If two identical waves, that are initially in phase, become out of phase because of different path lengths, the combination of crests with troughs...

Shock Waves

Shock Waves

While deriving the Doppler formula for the observed frequency of a sound wave, it is assumed that the speed of sound in the medium is greater than the source's speed through it. When this condition is breached, a shock wave occurs.
When the source's speed approaches the speed of sound, constructive interference between successive wavefronts emitted by the source occurs immediately behind it. Initially, scientists believed that this constructive interference would result in such high...

Sound Waves

Sound Waves

Sound waves can be thought of as fluctuations in the pressure of a medium through which they propagate. Since the pressure also makes the medium's particles vibrate along its direction of motion, the waves can be modeled as the displacement of the medium's particles from their mean position.
Sound waves are longitudinal in most fluids because fluids cannot sustain any lateral pressure. In solids, however, shear forces help in propagating the disturbance in the lateral direction as well....

Travelling Waves

Travelling Waves

A wave is a disturbance that propagates from its source, repeating itself periodically, and is typically associated with simple harmonic motion. Mechanical waves are governed by Newton's laws and require a medium to travel. A medium is a substance in which a mechanical wave propagates, and the medium produces an elastic restoring force when it is deformed.
Water waves, sound waves, and seismic waves are some examples of mechanical waves. For water waves, the wave propagation medium is...

Interference and Superposition of Waves

Interference and Superposition of Waves

When two waves of the same nature occur in the same region simultaneously, they result in interference. Interference of waves implies that the net effect of the waves is the sum of the individual waves' effects. However, it does not imply that the individual waves affect the propagation of other waves.
Interference occurs in mechanical waves, such as sound waves, waves on a string, and surface water waves. Mechanical waves correspond to the physical displacement of particles. Hence,...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Enhancing passive underwater localization with small mobile directional sensors using a source of opportunity.

JASA express letters·2026

Same author

The increased drift of steep focusing surface gravity waves.

Journal of fluid mechanics·2026

Same author

Range-dependent matched-field geoacoustic inversion using a tonal source towed on circular tracks.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·2026

Same author

An unprecedented view of ocean currents from geostationary satellites.

Nature geoscience·2026

Same author

Multipath correlation at mid-frequency in a convergence zone.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·2026

Same author

Passive moving source ocean acoustic tomography with uncertainty quantification using relative arrival times from a ship of opportunity.

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America·2026

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 24, 2025

Author Spotlight: A Stable Phantom Material for Optical and Acoustic Imaging

Author Spotlight: A Stable Phantom Material for Optical and Acoustic Imaging

Published on: June 16, 2023

Mid-frequency acoustic tracking of breaking waves.

Ryan Saenger¹, Luc Lenain¹, William S Hodgkiss¹

¹Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093, USArsaenger@ucsd.edu, llenain@ucsd.ed, whodgkiss@ucsd.edu.

JASA Express Letters

|June 3, 2024

Summary

Acoustic detection of large surface wave breaking is possible using beamforming. This study developed a method using sub-array cross-correlations to accurately track wave trajectories, matching aerial observations.

More Related Videos

Long-term Behavioral Tracking of Freely Swimming Weakly Electric Fish

Long-term Behavioral Tracking of Freely Swimming Weakly Electric Fish

Published on: March 6, 2014

Cortical Bone Assessment Using Ultrasonic Guided Waves: A Reproducibility Study in a Healthy Population

Cortical Bone Assessment Using Ultrasonic Guided Waves: A Reproducibility Study in a Healthy Population

Published on: January 31, 2025

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 24, 2025

Author Spotlight: A Stable Phantom Material for Optical and Acoustic Imaging

Author Spotlight: A Stable Phantom Material for Optical and Acoustic Imaging

Published on: June 16, 2023

Long-term Behavioral Tracking of Freely Swimming Weakly Electric Fish

Long-term Behavioral Tracking of Freely Swimming Weakly Electric Fish

Published on: March 6, 2014

Cortical Bone Assessment Using Ultrasonic Guided Waves: A Reproducibility Study in a Healthy Population

Cortical Bone Assessment Using Ultrasonic Guided Waves: A Reproducibility Study in a Healthy Population

Published on: January 31, 2025

Area of Science:

Oceanography
Acoustics
Wave dynamics

Background:

Surface wave breaking is a significant source of oceanic noise.
A mid-frequency planar array (130m depth, 1m aperture) can detect these events acoustically at 5-6 kHz.
Beamforming alone has limitations in accurately tracking sources due to array geometry.

Purpose of the Study:

To develop and validate a method for accurately tracking the trajectories of large surface wave breaking events.
To overcome the limitations of traditional beamforming for source localization in this context.

Main Methods:

Splitting the planar array into sub-arrays.
Beamforming each sub-array toward the acoustic source.
Computing temporal cross-correlations of sub-array beams to estimate source location.

Main Results:

Successfully estimated source tracks of wave breaking events.
The estimated trajectories closely matched those observed in aerial imagery.
The cross-correlation method enhanced tracking accuracy compared to beamforming alone.

Conclusions:

Acoustic tracking of surface wave breaking is feasible using sub-array cross-correlation techniques.
This method provides accurate trajectory estimation, complementing visual observations.
The findings have implications for acoustic monitoring of ocean surface processes.