Acoustic tomography at shelf of the Black Sea

Using self-contained acoustic buoys developed at the Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences, experiments are performed to verify the possibility of acoustic tomography in a local region of a shallow-water sea. In the experiments, compound phase-manipulated signals are transmitted and the time responses of the medium are measured using three bottom-moored receiving and transmitting transducers separated by a distance of about 1 km. Identification of different groups of rays using simple models of the medium is considered. The results of reconstructing the sound and current velocities are compared with the data of independent measurements. The experiment is performed in complex weather conditions as an anticyclone passed to the experimentation region. It is shown that this acoustic tomography method is somewhat advantageous in the case of the absence of volumetric scatterers in the water bulk when the Doppler method of measuring currents fails.