MRI: Development of a Lightweight Towed Array Receiver (LTAR) for Wide Area Ocean Monitoring and Imaging

PI请求核磁共振资金，以开发一种轻型拖曳阵列接收器(LTAR)系统，用于快速、广域监测和利用声学测量海洋环境。LTAR将作为一种通用的移动海洋遥感工具，研究海洋生物、海洋学、海洋环境的地质和地球物理特性、海洋中的人为噪声及其对海洋生物的影响。它将使这些领域的基础性新科学进步成为可能。LTAR将被设计为接收从亚可听范围(数十赫兹)到高于可听范围(数万赫兹)的信号。对于被动传感，将有可能在跨大洋尺度上传感信号，而对于有源传感，如使用OAWRS(海洋声波导遥感)，将有可能瞬时成像直径超过100公里的区域。LTAR系统将由一个被动水声水听器线阵和一个为从通用水面研究船拖曳部署而设计的搬运系统组成，这些水听器在大范围内进行高分辨率定向传感而同步。LTAR系统的设计将是便携、用户友好、经济、高效和优化的，用于高性能、广域监测和海洋环境调查。系统的紧凑性将使其能够与补充设备联合拖曳，例如震源阵列，甚至在较小的科考船上，显著降低海上研究的成本，并向更广泛的研究人员开放使用。LTAR将足够轻，也可以在无人或自动水下机器人上部署。它将在水平和垂直两种配置下部署。布罗德影响：拟议中的高精度拖曳阵列，加上多用户的概念，将显著提高S研究员在海洋环境中跨许多科学学科进行精确测量的能力。这将是一项宝贵的资源，将在广泛的科学学科中改善海洋研究的科学状况方面发挥重要作用，并使美国能够保持其在海洋科学中的卓越地位。如果该系统能够廉价地动员起来，并在海上花费大量时间，那么实际上就有可能对大陆边缘的大片区域进行持续观测。对我们理解渔业生物学的潜在影响是惊人的，特别是与对海洋颜色、海面温度和渔船活动的卫星监测相结合。许多拟议的使用LTAR的研究活动将是多学科的，可能涉及本科生、研究生和博士后。来自学术界的LTAR团队成员积极指导学生，包括妇女和代表性不足的群体的研究努力，预计这将随着LTAR相关研究项目的开展而继续或扩大。

The PI requests MRI funding to develop a Lightweight Towed Array Receiver (LTAR) system for rapid, wide area monitoring, and measurement of the ocean environment with acoustics. The LTAR will serve as a general purpose mobile ocean remote sensing tool to study marine life, oceanography, geologic and geophysical properties of the ocean environment, anthropogenic noise in the ocean and its effect on marine life. It will enable fundamental new scientific advances in each of these areas. The LTAR will be designed to receive signals from the sub-audible range (tens of Hertz) to above the audible (tens of kiloHertz). For passive sensing, it will be possible to sense signals over trans-oceanic scales, while for active sensing such as with OAWRS (Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing), it will be possible to instantaneously image areas in excess of 100 km diameter. The LTAR system will be comprised of a line array of passive underwater acoustic hydrophones coherently synchronized for high resolution directional sensing over wide areas and a handling system designed for towed deployment from a generic surface research vessel. The LTAR system design will be portable, user-friendly, economical, efficient and optimized for high performance, wide-area monitoring and surveying of the ocean environment. System compactness will enable joint tow with complementary equipment, such as source arrays, even on smaller research vessels, significantly reducing the cost of at sea research and opening up usage to a much broader range of researchers. The LTAR will be light enough to also deploy from unmanned or autonomous underwater vehicles. It will be deployable in both horizontal and vertical configurations.Broader Impacts: The proposed towed array with such high precision coupled with the concept of multiple users will significantly increase researcher?s ability to do precise measurements across many scientific disciplines in the marine environment. It will be a valuable resource that will play a major role in improving the state of science in ocean research over a wide range of scientific discipline and allow the USA to maintain its eminent role in ocean science. If the system can be mobilized cheaply and spend significant amounts of time at sea it is realistically possible to keep enormous areas of the continental margins under continuous observation. The potential consequences for our understanding of fisheries biology are amazing, especially integrated with the satellite monitoring of ocean color, sea surface temperature and fishing boat activity. Many of the proposed research activities that would use LTAR would be multi-disciplinary and likely involve undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students. LTAR team members from academia actively mentor students, including women and underrepresented groups, in their research efforts, and this would be expected to continue or expand with LTAR-related research projects.