Feasibility of Bottom Classification with the Toroidal Volume Search Sonar (TVSS)

摘要

This is a progress report for the first year of work on bottom classificationusing tactical sensors. Data from a TVSS experiment in 1994, at deep and shallow sites, were provided by CSS and distributed by NRL/SSC. The data were processed and analyzed to provide calibration in a self-consistent manner and then to compute the magnitude of the normal incidence bottom reflection coefficient, which was then used to estimate bottom type. Difficulties due to clipping of the signal were detected and partially overcome. The results show the deep and shallow sites to be quite different with respect to bottom type. The TVSS system gain was too high for sediment classification purposes because it tends to clip the specular bottom reflected signal particularly over hard bottoms. A lower system gain setting is probably not an acceptable solution, therefore, it is suggested that a small proportion of pings be reserved for bottom classification purposes, perhaps every tenth ping, in which the source level is reduced by 20 dB.