Kevin Williams
Darrell Jackson
Appl. Phys. Lab., Univ. of Washington, 1013 NE 40th St., Seattle, WA 98105
In 1993 a special research program on Coastal Benthic Boundary Layers (CBBL) was begun. As part of that program an autonomous, spatially scanning, sonar system was deployed in a well characterized regions in the Baltic Sea and off the coast Florida. The goal was to examine high-frequency acoustic scattering from the sediment. This sonar operated at 40 kHz, had a 5(degrees) horizontal beamwidth, and acquired backscattering data within a 50-m radius area at least once an hour for several weeks at each site. During part of each deployment it operated in conjunction with a mobile receiving array so as to acquire bistatic data. The bistatic experimental apparatus, procedures, and results are presented. Finally, a recently developed bistatic model (driven, in part, by the environmental parameters measured at the experimental site) is tested against the experimental results. [Work supported by NRL CBBLSRP program.]