Design of periodic signals using FM sweeps and amplitude modulation for ocean acoustic travel-time measurements

A design procedure for an amplitude-modulated and nonlinear frequency-modulated (AM-NLFM) signal is introduced. The designed signal can drive a given transducer to its peak power to produce a sound pressure waveform into the water with a desired power spectrum and maximum possible energy. The signal can be formed either in the time domain or in the frequency domain. The frequency domain approach gives an output power spectrum precisely identical to a preferred shape. Therefore, the sidelobe levels after matched filtering are not raised by unwanted spectral magnitude ripples which exist when a time domain method is adopted. The absence of spectral ripples is desirable for applications requiring long range transmission and good multipath discrimination capability. An acceptable tradeoff between time resolution and sidelobe levels is achieved by properly choosing the desired power spectral shape. As the time resolution is usually the most critical specification for precision travel-time measurements, it is shown that by sacrificing some of the transducer´s output power capability, a waveform with a considerably wider bandwidth can be transmitted, resulting in a significantly enhanced time resolution. A quasi-steady-state (QSS) approximation is used in the signal design, leading to a manageable and intuitive design procedure