Horizontal directional spectrum estimation of the Heard Island transmissions

• Main Author: Traykovski, Peter A.
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 1994
• Subjects: Signal processing; Sound; Hearing; Underwater acoustics; Heard Island; Pacific
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1912/5549

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Ocean Engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution January 1994 In 1991 the Heard Island Feasibility Test demonstrated that it is possible to transmit coded acoustic signals nearly half way around the world. One of the key issues in the feasibility test was to determine the spatial structure of the received transmissions. In this thesis, data from the Canadian Defense Research Establishment Pacific horizontal line array is used to form an estimate of the directional power spectrum. This spectrum determines if any horizontal multipath is detectable. The preliminary signal conditioning, including frequency spectrum estimation and demodulation required before beamforming is described. Conventional and adaptive beamforming methods are examined with synthetic data to demonstrate the limitations on the directional spectrum results. The principle result of this work is that no stable horizontal multipath is evident. The mean arrival angle for the five hours of data analyzed is 212° ± 1.5°. The Office of Naval Research provided funding for the author under the ONR fellowship program.