During the past decade there has been a renewed interest in active sonar
systems at both low and medium frequencies. More recently this interest
has been extended to very high frequencies in shallow water.
Reverberation often limits the detection performance of these systems,
and there is a need to understand the underlying mechanisms that cause
the scattering. With more emphasis being given to reverberation
phenomena in the Scientific Program of Work at the SACLANT Undersea
Research Centre, it was considered an opportune time to host a meeting,
bringing together scientists from NATO countries to foster
cross-disciplinary dialogue and generate ideas for new research
directions. Consequently the Ocean Reverberation Symposium was held
25-29 May 1992 in La Spezia, Italy. Over 60 presentations were made on a
diverse selection of topics, of which ten papers will be published as a
SACLANTCEN Conference Proceedings. The papers in this volume are grouped
into 8 sections, usually in the same order as presented at the
corresponding session of the Symposium: Section 1 - Scattering
Mechanisms Section 2 - High Frequency Measurements and Mechanisms
Section 3 - Reverberation Modelling Section 4 - ARSRP Mid-Atlantic Ridge
Experiment Section 5 - Low Frequency Measurements Section 6 - Volume
Scattering Section 7 - Signal Processing Issues Section 8 - Applications
Taken together the papers show some emerging trends in the research.
