doi: 10.52899/24141437_2026_03_263
UDK: 534.87:551.463.2

Active Acoustic Tomography Methods for Underwater Situational Awareness and Fish Resource Monitoring

Семенов Н. Н., Клюбина К. А.
Article language: русский
Citation Link: Klyubina KA, Semenov NN. Active Acoustic Tomography Methods for Underwater Situational Awareness and Fish Resource Monitoring. Transactions of the Saint Petersburg State Marine Technical University. 2026,5(3):263–272. DOI: 10.52899/24141437_2026_03_263 EDN: GLVQKN

Annotation

BACKGROUND: The ocean is opaque to electromagnetic radiation, so underwater situational awareness over large areas remains a predominantly acoustic problem. Conventional underwater situational awareness means—active sonar, passive listening systems, and optical systems—offer either high resolution at short range or long range at low resolution. AIM: To systematize underwater situational awareness methods and their limitations, to present the physical and computational foundations of active tomography, to demonstrate methods for calculating the wave field in a water body, and to substantiate the applicability of the tomographic approach for tracking marine fish over large areas. METHODS: The physical basis of tomography is presented through the linearized ray travel-time equation and the inverse problem d = Gm + n; four canonical wave-field models (ray, normal-mode, parabolic-equation, and wavenumber-integration) are analyzed. The wave field is computed by the normal-mode method for a shallow-water waveguide. RESULTS: A tomographic network of sources and receivers with crossing paths is shown to reconstruct sound speed, temperature, and current fields, as well as the density field of fish aggregations over areas of tens to hundreds of kilometers. Sensitivity estimates and a regularized inverse solution are given. CONCLUSION: Active (and passive noise) tomography complements point and ray methods of underwater situational awareness, providing areal continuous observation; integration with machine learning improves inversion robustness. Keywords: ocean acoustic tomography; underwater situational awareness; hydroacoustics; sound speed; wave field; normal modes; inverse problem; fisheries acoustics; fish aggregation monitoring; parabolic equation.

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