Design for Underwater Aplanatic Straubel Acoustic Mirror

An aplanatic Fresnel lens was developed in a previous study to reduce the thickness of underwater acoustic lenses. Showing better convergence properties than aplanatic biconvex and hyperbolic Fresnel lenses, the aplanatic Fresnel lens had limitations in terms of frequency and number of waves owing to its shape. An underwater aplanatic Straubel acoustic mirror, the concept o which is based on a Straubel mirror, was designed to remove the two limitations of aplanatic Fresnel lenses. When the lens is used for underwater imaging sonar, the range resolution deteriorates because of these problems. The shape of the aplanatic Straubel mirror was designed using a numerical optimization method, and its convergence properties were evaluated in simulations. The mirror could correct spherical and coma aberrations in accordance with ray theory. In a comparison of the aplanatic Straubel mirror with an aplanatic Fresnel lens, the mirror had less coma aberration and field curvature than the lens. Additionally, the aplanatic Straubel mirror did not have the two limitations of the lens. Therefore, the aplanatic Straubel mirror showed better convergence than the aplanatic Fresnel lens. (C) 2011 The Japan Society of Applied Physics