David Dowling's Faculty Page

Research: Acoustic Coherent Backscatter Enhancement

Sponsor: Office of Naval Research
The US Navy uses active sonar for environmental mapping and for investigating remote unknown sound scatterers. However, the ocean is filled with marine life that scatters sound. In particular, shoals and schools of pelagic fish often provide large backscatter returns because of the acoustic contrast provided by their swim bladders. Interestingly, the multiple scattering phenomena known as coherent backscatter enhancement may provide a means to remotely discriminate between an aggregation of fish and a scattering object having military significance. The goal of this project is to determine if and when such discrimination might be possible.

References:
Mookerjee & Dowling, JASA 138, 758-768 [2015]
Mookerjee & Dowling, JASA 141, 1214-1225 [2017]

Current Research Projects
1. Predictions of Acoustic Uncertainty
2. Blind Deconvolution in Reverberant Environments
3. Nonlinear Techniques for Remote Sensing
4. Acoustic Diagnostics for Reverberant Environments

Recent Research Projects
5. Acoustic Coherent Backscatter Enhancement
6. Simulations of Washing Machine Processes
7. Turbulent Boundary Layers At High Reynolds Number
8. Multi-dimensional Measurements of Velocity during Thermoplastic Injection Molding
9. Beyond Line-of-sight Acoustic Sensing
10. Measurements of Oil-film Thickness