Claude A. LeDoux
Regina M. DuBord
Naval Undersea Warfare Ctr., Div. Newport, Newport, RI 02840
Acoustic tank calibration of transducers using low-frequency pulsed sinusoidal inputs (below 500 Hz) in water has generally been impossible, due to strong, variable signal reflections from the tank walls and air--water interface that corrupt measurements before the transducer response reaches steady state. Since the large tank size needed to overcome this difficulty is impractical, a computational scheme has been investigated for predicting these steady-state responses. Specifically, Prony's method, applied to the echo-free portion of a response signal, has been employed to generate a mathematical signal model which theoretically can be used to extrapolate the response to any later time, as suggested by Beatty et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 63, 1782--1794 (1978)]. An experimental assessment of this approach, performed in the Naval Undersea Warfare Center acoustic tank, as well as experimental justification of its validity, will be presented.