SOUND-VELOCITY PROFILE ESTIMATION - A SYSTEM-THEORETIC APPROACH

A system-theoretic approach is proposed to investigate the feasibility of reconstructing a sound velocity profile (SVP) from acoustical hydr ophone measurements. This problem is based on a state-space representa tion of the normal-mode propagation model. It is shown' that this repr esentation can be utilized to investigate the so-called observability of the SVP from noisy measurement data. A model-based processor is dev eloped to extract the required information and it is shown that even i n cases where limited SVP information is available, the SVP can be est imated using this approach. Based on this framework, investigations ar e made, of model-based solutions to the sound velocity profile and rel ated parameter estimation problems. In particular, a processor is desi gned that allows in situ recursive estimation of the sound velocity pr ofile from simulated data.