Matched-impulse-response processing for shallow-water localization and geoacoustic inversion

In this paper, impulse response matching is proposed for source localization and environmental inversion. The ocean impulse response is estimated using a cross-correlation procedure applied to data from the propagation of a broadband pulse in a shallow-water environment. Source localization and geoacoustic parameter estimation are then performed through time-domain correlations between the estimated impulse responses at spatially separated phones and synthetic replica impulse responses. The method is both spatially and temporally coherent. Parameter space search uses a hierarchical scheme designed to exploit the sensitivity of the acoustic field to the unknown parameters. Tested on the SWellEX-96 and synthetic data, the proposed method is shown to be more robust than conventional (linear), incoherent, broadband matched field processing. (C) 2000 Acoustical Society of America.