Mapping Clutter In Situ: Broadband Results from T-MAST 02 and Boundary 2004

This paper presents experimental results of applying two methods to help mitigate the seabed clutter problem by spatially isolating significant reverberant features in situ: (1) a "clutter mapping" technique applied to broadband (400 to 2500 Hz) acoustic data collected in the vicinity of the Stanton Banks off of Scotland during the T-MAST 02 experiment; and (2) the use of a cardioid receiver array on the Malta Plateau off of Sicily during the Boundary 2004 experiment. It is shown that while there are a number of correspondences between strong clutter events and the leading edges of known bathymetric features, there are also a number of clutter returns with no obvious corresponding bathymetric relief. The implications are that relying on archival bathymetric (and wreck) databases will in general be insufficient, and that in situ reverberation assessments need to be conducted that yield not just the mean (intensity) characteristics, but also the statistics