Simulation and experimental studies on acoustic scattering characteristics of surface targets

Based on the Kirchhoff approximation, a prediction method on the echo characteristics of surface targets was presented, considering the reflection effect of water surface. Specifically, the performance of this proposed approach was evaluated with acoustic scattering by a rigid semi-submerged sphere. A 3D warship model, built upon the fundamentals of the proposed approach, was introduced and validated by the acoustic scattering experiment on lake. The simulation and experimental results show together that the sea surface has a significant influence on the echo characteristics represented as several echo highlights depending on the acoustic path difference. With beam forming technique, the results also reveal that the echo characteristics are mainly from the scattering contribution of stem, midship and rudders. Furthermore, some relevant parameters including length, width, range and speed can be inferred from experimental results. In summary, this work presents a systematic effort to predict the echo characteristics of surface target with new method.