Article révisé par les pairs
Résumé : Propagation effects degrade the performance of active sonar systems operating in either deep or shallow water. The ocean medium distorts the transmitted signals by time dispersion and as a result, the performance (signal-to-noise ratio) of correlation receivers is reduced if the receiver does not account for energy spreading. Results from this study demonstrate that the performance of a conventional matched filter can be improved if the reference (replica) channel compensates for the distortion. A model-based matched filter is generated by correlating the received signal with a reference channel that consists of the transmitted signal convolved with the impulse response of the medium. The channel impulse responses are predicted with a broadband propagation model using in situ sound speed measured data and archival bottom loss data. The relative performance of conventional and model-based matched filter processing is compared for large time-bandwidth product linear frequency modulated signals propagating in a dispersive waveguide. From ducted propagation measurements conducted in an area west of Sardinia, the model-based matched filter localizes the depths of both the source and receiving array and the range between them. The peak signal-to-noise ratio for the model-based matched filter is always larger than the conventional. © 1993 IEEE