Underwater acoustic models

Sonar system performance is governed by the effects of the ocean medium, the target, and the sonar equipment. This relationship is expressed in the terms of the sonar equation. The term of particular interest to acoustic modeling is the received signal level. Recent advances in ray theory and the analysis of measurements from several carefully planned and executed experiments have permitted certain properties of the wave field to be described within the context of ray acoustics. The result is the synthesis of a more unified approach drawing from the strengths of both disciplines and yielding an extremely powerful transmission-loss model. This paper describes this unified result which has been incorporated in Navy Standard models for the prediction of acoustic propagation loss.