Design of a time reversal mirror for medium scale experiments

A rigid 24-element acoustic source-receiver array has been jointly developed by ATLANTIDE, LOA and ECA. The array, based on COTS equipment, is specified to be easily deployed from a pier and to allow simple and low cost at sea experiments with water depths up to 20 meters. Dedicated to underwater detection and focusing applications in very shallow water, the instrumentation can be deployed in various acoustic time reversal configurations: detection of drifting objects, acoustic barrier, communication with AUV, etc. The system performance based on the time reversal concept and more particularly on the Time Reversal Operator Decomposition method (D.O.R.T.) is currently being estimated by experiments in a pool and in the bay of Brest.