High Fidelity Laser Profiling of Biologically Active Sediment
Abstract
Benthic biological activity in shallow water ocean environments disturbs the sediment sufficiently to significantly affect acoustic" scattering and reverberation measurements,either for sediment characterization or for object detection and classification. A projectcurrently funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) studying acoustic scattering frombiologically active sediment in water tanks aims to disambiguate sediment volume scatteringeffects from surface roughness effects, both caused by bioturbation within the sediment. A laser profiler system is capable of providing a large~scale map of the sediment interface with submillimeter resolution, helping to monitor changes in surface structure over time during these experiments. Comparison of acoustic scattering changes to sediment profiles will clearly distinguish surface structure changes from sediment volume effects, and their relative importance to the acoustic scattering may be investigated as a function of incident frequency and angle. These measurements will also be useful to monito"r biological growth. The findings will inform future research motivated by antisubmarine warfare and minecountermeasures.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Jun 13, 2019
- Source ID
- N000141912397
Entities
People
- Marcia J. Isakson
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy
- University of Texas at Austin