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Using only ocean ambient noise recordings it is possible to approximate the local time domain Green's function (TDGF) and extract the time delays associated with different ray path between the elements of a bottom hydrophone array. Comparing the strength of the noise correlation function taken over increasing time windows with residual fluctuations points to an optimum time window to use in the noise correlation function. Through comparison with computer simulations the resulting time series is shown to accurately approximate noise responses in the environment. Analysis of the TDGF gives accurate environmental detail, specifically the critical angle at the water-sediment interface.

The time-domain cross correlation of incoherent and random noise recorded by a series of passive sensors contains the impulse response of the medium between these sensors. By using noise generated by a can of compressed air sprayed on the surface of a plexiglass plate, we are able to reconstruct not only the time of flight but the whole wave forms between the sensors. From the reconstruction of the direct A(0) and S(0) waves, we derive the dispersion curves of the flexural waves, thus estimating the mechanical properties of the material without a conventional electromechanical source. The dense array of receivers employed here allow a precise frequency-wavenumber study of flexural waves, along with a thorough evaluation of the rate of convergence of the correlation with respect to the record length, the frequency, and the distance between the receivers. The reconstruction of the actual amplitude and attenuation of the impulse response is also addressed in this paper.

It has recently been shown [Roux et al., "Extracting coherent wave fronts from acoustic ambient noise in the ocean," J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 116, 1995-2003 (2004)] that the time-averaged correlation of ocean noise between two points yields a deterministic waveguide arrival structure embedded in the time-domain Green's function. By performing a set of these correlations between a vertical receive array and a single receiver, transfer functions necessary for time reversal can be extracted from ocean noise. Theory and simulation demonstrate this process and data of opportunity from the North Pacific Acoustic Laboratory experiment confirm the expected performance of a noise-based time reversal mirror.

Coherent deterministic arrival times can be extracted from the derivative of the time-averaged ambient noise cross-correlation function between two receivers. These coherent arrival times are related to those of the time-domain Green's function between these two receivers and have been observed experimentally in various environments and frequency range of interest (e.g., in ultrasonics, seismology, or underwater acoustics). This nonintuitive result can be demonstrated based on a simple time-domain image formulation of the noise cross-correlation function, for a uniform distribution of noise sources in a Pekeris waveguide. This image formulation determines the influence of the noise-source distribution (in range and depth) as well as the dependence on the receiver bandwidth for the arrival-time structure of the derivative of the cross-correlation function. These results are compared with previously derived formulations of the ambient noise cross-correlation function. Practical implications of these results for sea experiments are also discussed.

Groups of coordinated underwater vehicles or sensors are powerful tools for monitoring the ocean. A requirement of many coordinated surveys is to determine a spatial reference between each node in a swarm. This work considers the self-localization of a swarm of independently moving vehicles using acoustic noise from a dominating incoherent source recorded by a single hydrophone onboard each vehicle. This method provides an inexpensive and infrastructure-free spatial reference between vehicles. Movement between the vehicles changes the swarm geometry and a self-localization estimate must be generated from data collected on short time scales. This challenges past self-localization approaches for acoustic arrays. To overcome this challenge, the proposed self-localization algorithm jointly estimates the vehicle geometry and the directionality of the ambient noise field, without prior knowledge of either estimate. To demonstrate this method, experimental results are provided when a boat is the main dominating source. The results demonstrate the ability to both estimate the direction of arrival of the boat and the relative positions of the vehicles in the swarm. The approach in this paper is not limited to moving vessels. Simulations are provided to examine three different factors that affect the proposed solution: inter-vehicle motion, vehicle geometry, and the azimuthal variance of the noise field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a demonstration of ambient acoustic noise processing on a set of free floating oceanic receivers whose relative positions vary with time. It is shown that it is possible to retrieve information that is relevant to the travel time between the receivers. With thousands of short time cross-correlations (10 s) of varying distance, it is shown that on average, the decrease in amplitude of the noise correlation function with increased separation follows a power law. This suggests that there may be amplitude information that is embedded in the noise correlation function. An incoherent beamformer is developed, which shows that it is possible to determine a source direction using an array with moving elements and large element separation. This incoherent beamformer is used to verify cases when the distribution of noise sources in the ocean allows one to recover travel time information between pairs of mobile receivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural-change detection and characterization, or structural-health monitoring, is generally based on modal analysis, for detection, localization, and quantification of changes in structure. Classical methods combine both variations in frequencies and mode shapes, which require accurate and spatially distributed measurements. In this study, the detection and localization of a local perturbation are assessed by analysis of frequency changes (in the fundamental mode and overtones) that are combined with a perturbation-based linear inverse method and a deconvolution process. This perturbation method is applied first to a bending beam with the change considered as a local perturbation of the Young's modulus, using a one-dimensional finite-element model for modal analysis. Localization is successful, even for extended and multiple changes. In a second step, the method is numerically tested under ambient-noise vibration from the beam support with local changes that are shifted step by step along the beam. The frequency values are revealed using the random decrement technique that is applied to the time-evolving vibrations recorded by one sensor at the free extremity of the beam. Finally, the inversion method is experimentally demonstrated at the laboratory scale with data recorded at the free end of a Plexiglas beam attached to a metallic support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ambient noise was recorded on two vertical line arrays (VLAs) separated by 450 m and deployed in shallow water (depth ∼150 m) off San Diego, CA continuously for 6 days. Recordings were dominated by non-stationary and non-uniform broadband shipping noise (250 Hz to 1.5 kHz). Stable coherent noise wavefronts were extracted from ambient noise correlations between the VLAs during all 6 days by mitigating the effect of discrete shipping events and using array beamforming with data-derived steering vectors. This procedure allows the tracking of arrival-time variations of these coherent wavefronts during 6 days and may help in developing future passive acoustic tomography systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extracting coherent wavefronts between passive receivers using cross-correlations of ambient noise (CAN) provides a means for monitoring the seismoacoustic environment without using active sources. However, using cross-correlations between single receivers can require a long recording time in order to extract stable coherent arrivals from CAN. This becomes an issue if the propagation medium fluctuates significantly during the recording period. To address this issue, this article presents a general spatio-temporal filtering procedure to enhance the emergence rate for coherent wavefronts extracted from time-averaged ambient noise correlations between two spatially separated arrays. The robustness of this array-based CAN technique is investigated using ambient shipping noise recorded over 24 h in the frequency band [250-850 Hz] on two vertical line arrays deployed 143 m apart in shallow water (depth 20 m). Experimental results confirm that the array-based CAN technique can significantly reduce the recording duration (e.g., from 22 h to 30 min) required for extracting coherent wavefronts of sufficient amplitude (e.g., 20 dB over residual temporal fluctations) when compared to conventional CAN implementations between single pairs of hydrophones. These improvements of the CAN technique could benefit the development of noise-based ocean monitoring applications such as passive acoustic tomography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have shown that small changes can be monitored in a scattering medium by observing phase shifts in the coda. Passive monitoring of weak changes through ambient noise correlation has already been applied to seismology, acoustics, and engineering. Usually, this is done under the assumption that a properly reconstructed Green function (GF), as well as stable background noise sources, is necessary. In order to further develop this monitoring technique, a laboratory experiment was performed in the 2.5 MHz range in a gel with scattering inclusions, comparing an active (pulse-echo) form of monitoring to a passive (correlation) one. Present results show that temperature changes in the medium can be observed even if the GF of the medium is not reconstructed. Moreover, this article establishes that the GF reconstruction in the correlations is not a necessary condition: The only condition to monitoring with correlation (passive experiment) is the relative stability of the background noise structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been demonstrated experimentally and theoretically that an estimate of the Green’s function between two receivers can be obtained from the time derivative of the long-time average ambient noise function cross-correlation function between these two receivers. The emergence rate of the deterministic coherent arrival times of the cross-correlation function, which yield an estimate of the Green’s function, from the recordings of an isotropic distribution of random noise sources is studied by evaluating the amplitude of the variance of the cross-correlation function. The leading term in the expression of the variance depends on the recorded energy by both receivers and the time-bandwidth product of the recordings. The variance of the time derivative of the correlation function has a similar dependency. These simple analytic formulas show a good agreement with the variance determined experimentally for the correlation of ocean ambient noise for averaging time varying from 1 to 33 min. The data were recorded in shallow water at a depth of 21-m water depth in the frequency band [300–530 Hz] for receivers separation up to 28 m. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Estimates of the travel times between the elements of a bottom hydrophone array can be extracted from the time-averaged ambient noise cross-correlation function (NCF). This is confirmed using 11-min-long data blocks of ambient noise recordings that were collected in May 1995 near the southern California coast at an average depth of 21 m in the 150-700 Hz frequency range. Coherent horizontal wavefronts emerging from the time derivative of the NCF are obtained across the array's aperture and are related to the direct arrival time of the time-domain Green's function (TDGF). These coherent wavefronts are used for array element self-localization (AESL) and array element self-synchronization (AESS). The estimated array element locations are used to beamform on a towed source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been experimentally demonstrated that the Green’s function between two points could be recovered using the cross-correlation function of the ambient noise measured at these two points. This paper investigates the theory behind this result in the simple case of a homogeneous medium with attenuation. © 2005 Acoustical Society of America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modes and wavenumbers are the principal ingredients that characterize the pressure field in an oceanic waveguide. However, wavenumber and mode inversions are well-known to be a difficult task in underwater acoustics. Moreover, this double inversion has never been performed simultaneously from the same configuration of emitters and receivers. We present a new approach to this problem in a shallow water environment between two vertical arrays of sources and receivers. Starting from a classical modal decomposition of the pressure field, our algorithm focuses on a specific treatment of phase and amplitude variables. The key idea is to run a three-stage optimization by working separately on the phase and amplitude of the acoustic field. The high number of variables of the problem is turned into an advantage by using an adjoint code generated by an Automatic Differentiation software. Numerical results in the presence of noise show that modes and wavenumbers are estimated with a high accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A method to obtain coherent acoustic wave fronts by measuring the space--time correlation function of ocean noise between two hydrophones is experimentally demonstrated. Though the sources of ocean noise are uncorrelated, the time-averaged noise correlation function exhibits deterministic waveguide arrival structure embedded in the time-domain Green's function. A theoretical approach is derived for both volume and surface noise sources. Shipping noise is also investigated and simulated results are presented in deep or shallow water configurations. The data of opportunity used to demonstrate the extraction of wave fronts from ocean noise were taken from the synchronized vertical receive arrays used in the frame of the North Pacific Laboratory (NPAL) during time intervals when no source was transmitting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Iterative time reversal has been suggested as both an efficient method of creating a spatio-temporal focus and for use in telecommunications as a form of equalization. In this paper, the equivalence of a passive, i.e., via computation, iterative time reversal to the Moore-Penrose pseudo-inverse of the propagation matrix is shown. In the context of communications, however, any received signal is corrupted by noise. Therefore, a regularization term is introduced to the iterative equations, causing convergence to the canonical minimum mean-squared error linear equalizer. Hence, a relationship between time reversal and equalization is demonstrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inspired by seismic-noise correlation and time reversal, a shear-wave tomography of soft tissues using an ultrafast ultrasonic scanner is presented here. Free from the need for controlled shear-wave sources, this passive elastography is based on Green's function retrieval and takes advantage of the permanent physiological noise of the human body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has been demonstrated experimentally that an estimate of the Green’s tensor between two seismic stations can be obtained from the long-time average of the cross-correlation of ambient noise at the two stations. This result provides a means to image Earth structure using the ambient noise field only, without the use of active seismic sources or earthquakes. Seismic noise data from 148 broadband seismic stations in Southern California were used to extract the surface wave arrival-times between all station pairs in the network in the frequency band 0.05–0.4 Hz. In this frequency band, ambient noise (originating from ocean microseisms) propagating over long distances is typically dominated by surface waves. A record section of the waveforms as a function of increasing receiver separation shows clearly that the recovered signals are propagating wavetrains. The seismic data were then used in a simple, but densely sampled tomographic procedure to estimate the surface wave velocity structure for a region in Southern California. The result compares favorably with previous estimates obtained using more conventional and elaborate inversion procedures. This demonstrates that coherent ambient noise between station pairs can be used for seismic imaging purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sensitivity of the received acoustic field at an array from a specific source to perturbations of the sound speed field about a mean value can be computed using a Born approximation formulation involving forward model calculations. When this sensitivity map is appropriately combined with a covariance of the uncertainty of the sound speed perturbations, one obtains the resultant perturbation to the cross spectral density matrix (CSDM) of the acoustic field. This additional term to the mean CSDM can be thought of as a noise term resulting from the uncertainty in the sound speed field. Computations indicate that this additional term is a form of correlated noise that suggests the possibility of mitigating environmental uncertainty with a robust array processing procedure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the sensitivity of cross correlations to the anisotropy of the incident field in the context of seismic ambient noise monitoring of small velocity changes. Numerical simulations of elastic waves are performed in a 2D scattering plate with a focus on the comparative character of the direct and coda waves in the cross-correlation. We show that coda waves reconstructed from cross-correlations are far more robust than direct waves in the presence of azimuthal anisotropy of the incident field. We observe similar behavior with real data recorded on Erebus volcano, where a database of impulsive icequakes is used to simulate an anisotropic source field. We propose a simplified approach to evaluate the sensitivity of scattered waves to the anisotropy of the incoming noise field. We rely on previous results obtained for direct waves and on intrinsic properties of scattered waves to predict the errors produced by strong source anisotropy with numerical experiments. These results also yield realistic values for monitoring the accuracy to be expected with real data at crustal scales. Our analysis shows that high-precision noise-based monitoring could be performed with coda waves in the correlation functions, even in the presence of variations in the azimuthal distribution of the ambient noise field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]