The Kauai Experiment

摘要

The Kauai Experiment was conducted from June 24 to July 9, 2003 to provide a comprehensive study of acoustic propagation in the 8–50 kHz band for diverse applications. Particular sub-projects were incorporated in the overall experiment 1) to study the basic propagation physics of forward-scattered high-frequency (HF) signals including time/angle variability, 2) to relate environmental conditions to underwater acoustic modem performance including a variety of modulation schemes such as MFSK, DSSS, QAM, passive-phase conjugation, 3) to demonstrate HF acoustic tomography using Pacific Missile Range Facility assets and show the value of assimilating tomographic data in an ocean circulation model, and 4) to examine the possibility of improving multibeam accuracy using tomographic data. To achieve these goals, extensive environmental and acoustic measurements were made yielding over 2 terabytes of data showing both the short scale (seconds) and long scale (diurnal) variations. Interestingly, the area turned out to be extremely active with a large mixed layer overlying a very dynamic lower channel. This talk will present an overview of the experiment and preliminary results.