Spatial observations of low-frequency acoustic propagation near isolated seamounts using an autonomous surface vehicle

• DOI: 10.1121/10.0036447
• Publication Date: 2025-04-17T12:48:45Z
• Authors: Matthew McKinley; Davis Rider; Laurent Grare; Ganesh Gopalakris...; Luc Lenain; Karim G. Sabra
• Keywords: Seamount; Chirp

This work demonstrates the feasibility of using autonomous surface vehicles equipped with a shallow towed acoustic module (TAM) to survey spatial variability low-frequency propagation across complex bathymetry, such as Atlantis II seamounts in Northwest Atlantic. The abrupt seamount topography is found significantly influence TAM's recordings chirp transmissions (500–600 Hz band) from bottom-moored source ∼30 km by notably causing blockage in-plane paths and reverberation arrivals displaying three-dimensional effects, confirmed synthetic aperture beamforming. Ray tracing simulations are compared these observations based on data-assimilated ocean model.