Acoustical characterization of a shallow water environment from sparse data

A new method for characterizing a region using limited acoustical and environmental measurements is proposed. The acoustical response from a moored vertical source array is measured along a receiving array. Using a generalized form of Huygens´ principle, these fields can be merged with sparse in situ measurements and archival data. The objective is to produce a tightly constrained real time map of the coherent field and transmission loss in the volume. In the present work, alternative extrapolation procedures are examined. The effect of interaction with a lossy sediment layer is studied in a numerical simulation