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

PI请求MRI资助开发轻型拖曳阵列接收器（LTAR）系统，用于快速，广域监测和声学海洋环境测量。LTAR将作为一种通用的移动的海洋遥感工具，用于研究海洋生物、海洋学、海洋环境的地质和地球物理特性、海洋中的人为噪音及其对海洋生物的影响。它将使这些领域中的每一个都能取得根本性的新科学进展。LTAR将被设计为接收从亚可听范围（数十赫兹）到可听范围以上（数十千赫）的信号。对于被动传感，将有可能感测跨海洋尺度的信号，而对于主动传感，如OAWRS（海洋声波波导遥感），将有可能即时成像直径超过100公里的区域。LTAR系统将包括一个无源水下声学水听器的线阵，这些水听器相干同步，用于大面积的高分辨率方向感测，以及一个设计用于从普通水面研究船拖曳部署的处理系统。LTAR系统的设计将是便携式的、用户友好的、经济的、有效的，并为海洋环境的高性能、广域监测和调查进行了优化。系统的紧凑性将使联合拖曳与补充设备，如源阵列，甚至在较小的研究船，大大降低了海上研究的成本，并开放使用范围更广的研究人员。LTAR将足够轻，也可以从无人驾驶或自主水下航行器部署。它可以水平和垂直两种配置部署。 拟议的拖曳阵列与这样的高精度加上多个用户的概念将显着增加研究人员？该公司有能力在海洋环境的许多科学学科中进行精确测量。这将是一个宝贵的资源，将在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杰出作用。如果该系统可以廉价地调动起来，并在海上花费大量时间，实际上就有可能对大陆边的大片区域进行连续观测。对我们了解渔业生物学的潜在影响是惊人的，特别是结合对海洋颜色，海面温度和渔船活动的卫星监测。许多使用LTAR的拟议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，在他们的研究工作，这将有望继续或扩大与LTAR相关的研究项目。

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.