Estimation of seabed properties and range from vector acoustic observations of underwater ship noise

Abstract

The Intensity Vector Autonomous Recorder (IVAR) simultaneously measures acoustic particle velocity and pressure. IVAR was deployed during the 2017 Seabed Characterization Experiment (SBCEX) with the primary objective to study sound propagation in fine-grained, muddy sediments. In this study a Bayesian inversion framework is applied to ship underwater noise recorded by IVAR. The data are relative phase of pressure and vertical particle velocity, a quantity that is independent of the ship noise source spectrum. Inversion estimates for the sediment layer and underlying basement properties are in agreement with other reports from SBCEX.