Active control of target scattered sound fields in ocean environments using virtual sensing

Active control of scattered sound fields is essential for low-frequency acoustic stealth of underwater targets. However, the ocean waveguide environment introduces challenges, such as multipath effects and non-uniform sound speed distribution, that degrade the performance of existing active scattering control methods. This paper proposes an active scattering control method applicable to ocean waveguide environments. The method employs an improved virtual sensing technique suitable for multi-incidence scenarios to obtain free-field far-field predictions, which are then combined with ocean environmental parameters to estimate the far-field pressure distribution in the waveguide. These distributions are subsequently used to design the weight vector for the secondary source array. Additionally, the paper explores active control strategy when environmental parameters are unknown. Finally, the proposed method is validated through finite element method simulations, performing active control of the scattered field of a cylinder in both isovelocity and depth-dependent channels. The simulation results demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method.