Multichannel deconvolution of an acoustic transient in an oceanic waveguide

The temporal signature and source location of an acoustic pulse propagating in an oceanic waveguide is estimated from passively sensed multichannel data on a vertical hydrophone array. A theoretical solution for this inverse source problem is presented that incorporates both a broadband generalization of matched‐field processing to estimate the source location, and a Bayesian based deconvolution algorithm operating on multichannel array data to extract the source signature. The algorithms are implemented on a massively parallel computer architecture. The theory was tested on experimental data using a chirp signal recorded on a vertical hydrophone array located approximately one convergence zone from the source. Results indicate that deconvolving the Green’s function using multichannel data is important for stabilizing the inversion in the presence of environmental mismatch. The additional information about the source time series, obtained over slightly different propagation channels, limits the solution s...