SUBJECT: M.S. Thesis Presentation
   
BY: Shane Lani
   
TIME: Monday, October 29, 2012, 11:00 a.m.
   
PLACE: MRDC Building, 4211
   
TITLE: Passive acoustic imaging and monitoring using ambient noise
   
COMMITTEE: Dr. Karim G. Sabra, Chair (ME)
Dr. F. Levent Degertekin (ME)
Dr. Justin K. Romberg (ECE)
 

SUMMARY

An approximate of the Green's function can be obtained by taking the cross-correlation of ambient noise that has been simultaneously recorded on separate sensors. This method is applied for two experiments, which illustrate the advantages and challenges of this technique. The first experiment is in the ultrasonic regime [5-30] MHz and uses capacitive micromachined ultrasonic transducer arrays to image the near field and compares the passive imaging to the conventional pulse-echo imaging. Both the array and target are immersed in a fluid with the sensors recording the fluid's random thermal-mechanical motion as the ambient noise. The second experiment is a passive ocean monitoring experiment, which uses spatiotemporal filtering to rapidly extract coherent arrivals between two vertical line arrays. In this case the ambient noise in the frequency band [250 1500] Hz is dominated by non-stationary shipping noise. For imaging purposes the cross-correlation needs to extract the Green's function so that the imaging can be done correctly. While for monitoring purposes, the important feature is the change in arrivals which correspond to the environment changing. Results of both experiments are presented along with the advantages of this passive method over the more accepted active methods.