Application of trans-dimensional particle filtering for geoacustic inversion

The acquiring geoacoustic model and associated geoacoustic parameters is vital for sound propagation modelling in a range-dependent environment. Conventional sequential methods, e.g., particle filtering and Kalman filtering have been widely used for geoacoustic inversion in range-dependent environment, which encounter challenges when confronted with unknown geoacoustic models that intrinsically varying with range. As an attempt to estimate geoacoustic model and associated geoacoustic parameters as well, a trans-dimensional particle filtering method is presented here. This method integrates birth-death rules into the filtering process, enabling automatic selection of appropriate geoacoustic models and estimating geoacoustic parameters in the same time. Numerical simulations were conducted based on an environment model of the South China Sea, where a sea trial was conducted in 2022. Numerical results demonstrate the efficiency in accurately estimating the geoacoustic model variations and associated parameters. Preliminary results of sea trial data processing are also presented here.