Airborne optical characterization of underwater sound sources
AssigneeBAE Systems Information and Electronic Systems Integration Inc.
InventorMichael J. DeWeert
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An interferometry system and method thereof detects movements of the surface of a body of water in response to acoustic waves generated from a sub-surface source interacting with the surface. Movements of the surface of the body of water are viewed over multiple interferometric images that can be pieced together to generate an interferometric movie or video. The interferometric movie or video depicts the movement of the acoustic wave propagating through the viewing area. Once the movement of the acoustic wave propagating through the viewing area is known, then back propagation techniques are employed to determine or triangulate the location of the sub-surface source that generated the acoustic wave.
Claims20
A system comprising:
- interferometric equipment including a laser beam generator and receiver;
- acoustic wave detection logic operatively connected to the interferometric equipment, the acoustic wave detection logic configured execute instructions on a non-transient computer readable storage medium to:
- transmit a laser beam towards a surface of water;
- receive, at the interferometer equipment, a reflected beam from the surface of water;
- measure, via the interferometer equipment, movement of acoustically driven surface waves at the surface of water at a reaction point in response to a subsurface acoustic wave interacting with the surface water;
- and
- disregard movement of gravity capillary waves.
A system comprising:
- a platform;
- interferometer equipment carried by the platform, the interferometer equipment including a laser beam generator and a receiver;
- acoustic wave detection logic carried by the platform including a non-transient computer readable storage medium having instructions encoded thereon that, when executed by a processor, execute operations to:
- transmit a laser beam from the laser beam generator of the interferometer equipment towards a surface of water below the platform;
- receive at the receiver of the interferometer equipment a reflected beam from the surface of water;
- measure, via the interferometer equipment, movement of the surface of water at a reaction point in response to an acoustic wave interacting with the surface water;
- and
- disregard movement of gravity capillary waves.
A computer program product including least one non-transitory computer readable storage medium on a moving platform in operative communication with a computer processing unit (CPU) in interferometer equipment having a laser beam generator and a receiver, the storage medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by the CPU, implement a process to determine the presence of a acoustically driven surface waves at a water surface generated from a subsurface acoustic source, the process comprising:
- transmitting a laser beam towards the water surface;
- receiving, at the receiver, a reflected beam from the surface of water;
- measuring, via the interferometer equipment, movement of acoustically driven surface waves at the water surface at a reaction point in response to the subsurface acoustic wave interacting with the surface water;
- and
- disregarding movement of gravity capillary waves.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.