An Oceano-Acoustic Simulation Framework for the Design of Lagrangian Systems Drifting in Mesoscale and Sub-Mesoscale Currents

Abstract

Sub-mesoscale currents are of great interest for oceanographers but unfortunately their observation is a very difficult task. Lagrangian systems can be used to monitor them and require the implementation of an acoustic signal processing chain leading to the localization of each node of that system. In order to help the design of the Lagrangian system prior to sea trials, a simulation framework coupling the results of an oceanographic model with a ray trace software is presented. To illustrate the benefit of this framework, an experimental set-up composed of 5 sources and 20 floats which are drifting for 15 days is analyzed. A dataset of 358,000 frequency responses reflecting sub-mesoscale dynamics is built up. From this dataset, relevant statistics are calculated to define the best transmission parameters of the acoustic sources and to choose the right ranging method. It turns out that using pseudo-random sequences and allocating the spectral resources with Code Division Multiple Access method is a relevant design in our context. Also, it appears that a noncoherent ranging processor gives the best performance.