Estimation of the causal impulse response of underwater target

This paper presents a deconvolution procedure for estimating the experimental impulse response of underwater target considered as a linear system. Two cases are taken into account. First, the echo signal fluctuations are varying in time from one ping to another. The target impulse response is calculated from the inverse Fourier transform of the Wiener filter output. Second, the echo signal fluctuations are weak from one ping to another. In this case, the accuracy of the target impulse response result is improved by spectral averaging, but the spectral phase is destroyed. A constraint of minimum phase impulse response is then applied to the non-rational mean spectrum via the Wiener-Doob homomorphic transformation