Algorithms and interface for ocean acoustic ray-tracing (Developed in MATLAB)

Abstract

An integrated friendly-user interactive ocean application package has been developed for computation of eigenrays for a given source - receiver configuration and subsurface and bottom environmental conditions utilizing the ray theory in MATLAB to study the Ocean Acoustic Propagation Characteristics (OAPS). This package facilitates automatic Graphical Visualization of acoustic ray parameters and generation of tabular forms of ray history for ray analysis. Results of numerical experiments conducted for Munk's canonical sound speed profile off Visakhapatnam waters are detailed as a case study. The simulated acoustic ray parameters of canonical ocean, off Visakhapatnam continental slope regions, reveals that the even very flat angle rays can scan entire column with repeated reflections from both surface and bottom due to depth limited nature of sound channel and weak gradients of sound speed prevailing in the medium on either side of the sound channel axis. This nature of phenomenon usually occurs in the case of shallow-water channel.