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My, how you’ve changed! (Environmental Effects on Repeat-pass Synthetic Aperture Sonar)
Applied Research Laboratory
Penn State
Synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) is now routinely used to produce photograph-like images of, and objects on, the seafloor. Repeat-pass SAS is a technique that uses pairs of SAS images taken at different times on the same area to quantify changes in the observed amplitude and phase of image pixels. The observed pixel amplitude and phase are sensitive to changes in the environment such as sediment movement due to local biology or hydrodynamics and by water column sound speed changes caused by advection of water masses with different properties or by turbulence. In this talk results from two experiments are reviewed which highlight the impact of environmental variability on repeat-pass SAS. (SAS image provided by Roy E. Hansen of the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment.)
Anthony P. Lyons, a senior scientist in Penn State's Acoustics Program, holds a Ph.D. in oceanography and has spent more than a decade conducting theoretical and experimental investigations in underwater acoustics. He is currently engaged in studies of high-frequency shallow-water propagation, acoustic interaction with the seafloor, and high-resolution characterization of seafloor sediments.
