Application of a Laser Doppler Vibrometer for Air-Water to Subsurface Signature Detection

摘要

There is much interest in detecting a target and optical communications from an airborne platform to a platform submerged under water. Accurate detection and communications between underwater and aerial platforms would increase the capabilities of surface, subsurface, and air, manned and unmanned vehicles engaged in oversea and undersea activities. The technique introduced in this paper involves a Laser Doppler Vibrometer (LDV) for acousto-optic sensing for detecting acoustic information propagated towards the water surface from a submerged platform inside a 12 gallon water tank. The LDV probes and penetrates the water surface from an aerial platform to detect air-water surface interface vibrations caused by an amplifier to a speaker generating a signal generated from underneath the water surface (varied water depth from 1" to 8"), ranging between 50Hz to 5kHz. As a comparison tool, a hydrophone was used simultaneously inside the water tank for recording the acoustic signature of the signal generated between 50Hz to 5kHz. For a signal generated by a submerged platform, the LDV can detect the signal. The LDV detects the signal via surface perturbations caused by the impinging acoustic pressure field; proving a technique of transmitting/sending information/messages from a submerged platform acoustically to the surface of the water and optically receiving the information/message using the LDV, via the Doppler Effect, allowing the LDV to become a high sensitivity optical-acoustic device. The technique developed has much potential usage in commercial oceanography applications. The present work is focused on the reception of acoustic information from an object located underwater.