Analysis of the ray-based blind deconvolution algorithm for shipping sources.

The ray-based blind deconvolution (RBD) technique for ocean waveguides estimates both the unknown waveform radiated by some source of opportunity and the channel impulse response (CIR) between the source and the receiving elements of an array of hydrophones using only measured signals, knowledge of the array geometry, and the local sound speed. Previous studies have investigated the applicability of this method for shipping sources in a shallow, nearly range-independent waveguide (∼200 m depth), but using a limited set of shipping vessels (typically only the research vessel itself) and operating within a small domain of RBD processing parameters (e.g., integration time and frequency band). This study systematically investigates the performance of the RBD method for estimating the CIR for a large set of shipping vessels recorded on short aperture, bottom-mounted, vertical arrays deployed in the Santa Barbara channel across different frequency bands and integration times, and also in comparison to CIR measured using active sources. Furthermore, the influence of the source motion on the RBD algorithm is quantified both numerically and experimentally.