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Ref.: SiPLAB Report 04/10, SiPLAB, University of Algarve,2010.
Abstract
This report describes the acoustic field calibration data set acquired during the CALCOM'
10 sea trial, that took place off the south coast of Portugal, from 22 to 24 June,
2010. The CALCOM'10 sea trial was a joining effort of WEAM and PHITOM projects involving
people from SiPLAB/CINTAL, WAVEC, ISR/IST Lisbon and Marsensing. This
sea trial in addition to acoustic field calibration part described herein, encompassed acoustic
equipment testing and calibration and underwater communications testing, which are
reported separately. Field calibration is a concept used to tune the parameters of an acoustic
propagation model for a region of interest. The basic idea is that one can accurate
model the acoustic propagation in a given region with only a scarce apriori bathymetric
and geoacoustic information of the area if relevant acoustic parameters obtained by acoustic
inference (i.e. acoustic inversion) are integrated in the acoustic model. For example,
this concept can be applied to the classical problem of transmission loss predictions or, as
in our case, the problem of predict the distribution of acoustic noise due to a wave energy
plant. In such applications the accuracy of bathymetric and geoacoustic parameters estimated
by acoustic means is not a concern, but only the accuracy of the predicted acoustic
field. The objective of this approach is to reduce the need for extensive bathymetric and
geoacoustic surveys, and reduce the infuence of modelling errors, for example due to the
bathymetric discretization used. This report presents the experimental setup, the data acquired
during the sea trial to prove the concept and discuss preliminary results of channel
characterization and acoustic forward modelling.