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 hydrophone measurements. A state-space representation of the normal-mode propagation model is used. It is shown that this representation can be utilized to investigate the so-called observability of the SVP from noisy measurement data. A model-based processor is developed to extract the required information, and it is shown that even in cases where limited SVP information is available, the SVP can be estimated using this approach. Based on this framework, investigations are made of model-based solutions to the sound velocity profile and related parameter estimation problems. In particular, a processor is designed that allows in situ recursive estimation of the sound velocity profile from simulated data