Location and Characterization of Underwater Ordnance using Resonance Scattered Sonar
Abstract
Unexploded ordnance (UXO) present a worldwide hazard in locations of previous military confrontations and at military training facilities. In particular, the presence of unexploded ordinance in coastal regions poses a severe risk that must be addressed before sites can be turned over to the public or coastal areas made available for commercial traffic. Although progress has been made in detecting UXO in underwater areas, there still exists a need for technologies that can detect and locate UXO buried in seafloor sediments and reliably distinguish munitions from clutter. We are investigating a method based on resonance scattering using small data sets in a controlled pond environment. The use of resonance scattering allows for deeper bottom penetration than in the case of the generally used acoustic imaging, because in the former case the wavelengths are longer than the latter. Furthermore, in the resonance scattering regime the geometry is independent of the target orientation. The sonar data sets were acquired during 2006 and 2007 by the Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington, at the Surface Warfare Center, Panama City, FL, and included an aluminum cylinder and sphere, as well as artillery shells and mortar rounds buried in the sandy pond bottom. Our results show that resonance scattered waves, although smaller in amplitude than the specular reflected signal, dominate much of the recorded traces in time. These signals can be used to determine the propagation velocities in the pond sediments, to locate the UXO in the subsurface and to characterize the UXO type by its size and filler velocities.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2009
- Bibcode:
- 2009AGUFMOS43B1388G
- Keywords:
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- 4259 OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL / Ocean acoustics