Converting sound speed uncertainty to an effective correlated noise term in array processing.

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]