Objective The morphological structure of marine sediments just beneath the seafloor is of great importance for both monitoring, modelling, and geotechnical exploration of coastal areas. Traditional methods are expensive, difficult to use and time consuming and prevent from making large area surveys routinely. In a manner inspired from ocean acoustical tomography, we intend to design and develop a methodology for high resolution estimation of the geophysical structure of the sediment layers in shallow water using a towed remote-sensing acoustic device, matched-field processing, and suitable inversion algorithms. The objectives of the work are:1) to conduct a parametric study to determine the optimal geometric configuration and mode of operation for a towed hydrophone array, with the objective of being able to resolve geophysical structures within the sediment; 2) to design data inversion techniques for geophysical parameter estimation that rely on the proposed geometry and exploit global minimization algorithms to avoid local minima; 3) to assemble and test an experimental sensor localization system being able to estimate sensor position within the accuracy determined by the parametric study; 4) to test the capabilities and limitations of the proposed method at sea and its feasibility for real operations; 5) to provide final design parameters that can be used for the assembling of a commercial device with the mentioned characteristics. Fields of science natural sciencesphysical sciencesacousticsengineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensorsnatural sciencesmathematicspure mathematicsgeometry Programme(s) FP3-MAST 2 - Specific research and technological development programme (EEC) in the field of marine science and technology, 1990-1994 Topic(s) 0302 - Underwater acoustics Call for proposal Data not available Funding Scheme CSC - Cost-sharing contracts Coordinator Universidade do Algarve EU contribution No data Address Campus de Gambelas 8004 Faro Portugal See on map Links Website Opens in new window Total cost No data Participants (3) Sort alphabetically Sort by EU Contribution Expand all Collapse all Instituto Hidrográfico Portugal EU contribution No data Address 59,Rua das Trinas 1296 Lisboa See on map Total cost No data North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Italy EU contribution No data Address Viale San Bartolomeo 400 19138 La Spezia See on map Total cost No data UNIVERSITY OF GENOVA Italy EU contribution No data Address 13,Via all'Opera Pia 13 16145 GENOVA See on map Total cost No data
