A wave theoretical approach to acoustic current profiling

CW Doppler, pulsed Doppler and correlation sonar are often dealt with as solitary acoustic profiling techniques. From a view-point of instrumentation, this is quite understandable, since each method is based on different data acquisition concepts. However, looking at acoustic profiling from a signal processing point of view, numerous similarities manifest themselves. Basically acoustic Doppler techniques evaluate the rate of phase change within the return of a transmitted signal and differences between Doppler methods merely arise from the fact that this phase change evaluation is carried out in different "data domains". Regarding acoustic Doppler on such a wave theoretical basis offers a clear and unified approach in the evaluation of different acoustic current profiling techniques: based on a single theoretical model, we can evaluate a wide range of applications. This is illustrated by discussing the hardware concepts of a current profiler, currently under construction at the Institute of Applied Physics TNO.