Statistical geoacoustic inversion from vertical correlation of shallow water reverberation

Statistical geoacoustic inversion results based on Reverberation Vertical Correlation (RVC) data from 300 Hz to 800 Hz are presented. The data were obtained during Yellow Sea Experiment-2005 (YSE-05). An uncertainty analysis is carried out. It is found that the inversion sea bottom sound velocities decrease when the frequency increases. Similar phenomenon has been reported by other authors. So it is difficult to determine the sea bottom sound velocity. In order to solve this problem, a two-layer bottom model is assumed, and a multi-frequency inversion approach based on Genetic Algorithm is proposed in this paper. The approach is demonstrated using YSE-05 experiment data. Both RVC and Normal Modes Depth Functions (NMDFs) calculated using the inverted geoacoustic parameters are in good agreement with the experimental measurements.