Many environmental factors may contribute to acoustic clutter and adversely affect the performance of tactical sonar by introducing false alarms in the system. During the Main Acoustic Experiment (MAE) 2003 of the Acoustic Clutter program, densely populated fish shoals were identified to be the dominant cause of shallow water acoustic clutter in the New Jersey Continental Shelf. The mixing of cold and warm water cause nutrient rich upwellings in continental shelf environment, creating favorable conditions for all types of marine life. In order to develop adaptive algorithms or technology to mitigate acoustic clutter, it becomes critical to identify, understand, and be able to accurately model the leading order mechanisms which cause bio-clutter in Navy systems in biologically-rich environments such as continental shelf regions.
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