Jeffrey L. Krolik
Dept. of Elec. Eng., Duke Univ., Box 90291, Durham, NC 27708
Numerical acoustic propagation models used in matched-field processing typically assume that ocean environmental parameters, such as the range-dependent sound-speed profile, are either known exactly or are characterized by stationary prior statistics. However, neither of these modeling approaches is well suited for accurately assimilating measurements of the correct ocean realization into the calculation of point-source acoustic wave front statistics. In this paper, environmental data is assimilated into a random adiabatic normal mode propagation model by calculating the conditional correlation matrix of an acoustic wave front given a set of contemporaneous sound-speed profile measurements made at different points in space. First-order perturbation theory is used to map the conditional statistics of Gaussian-distributed excess sound-speed variations into an estimate of the conditional point-source wave front correlation matrix. Minimum variance beamforming with environmental perturbation constraints [J. L. Krolik, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 92, 1408--1419 (1992)] conditioned on current environmental measurements is demonstrated as a means of exploiting this random wave front model to achieve improved matched-field source localization performance. [Work supported by ONR.]