Single mode excitation, attenuation, and backscatter in shallow water

In shallow water, bottom interaction may have a negative effect on the performance of active sonars. In this paper it is shown that a vertical array of weighted sources driven in an appropriate frequency band can be used to minimize the deleterious effects of bottom interaction, i.e., attenuation and backscatter. Simulation results (based on two-dimensional cw field calculations) are presented for three canonical geoacoustic models using both a winter and summer sound speed profile. It is shown through selective excitation of only mode one there exists a favorable frequency band providing both minimum attenuation and bottom generated backscatter.