Redwood W. Nero
Christopher Feuillade
Naval Res. Lab., Stennis Space Center, MS 39529--5004
A scattering model for predicting the backscattering from small ensembles of fish is used to determine the size and spatial arrangement of fish in schools. The model was initially developed to predict the low-frequency spectral signature of a fish school based on information on fish size and spacing. The inverse problem is to determine the size and spatial arrangement of fish within schools from measured scattering spectra. The method is applied to simulated data and measurements. Simulations provide information on the range of parameters that can be included in the inverse solution. Measurements are from several sources. They include examples of published data and recent measurements made by the Naval Research Laboratory. Results of this study suggest that low-frequency backscattering from fish schools may contain enough information to aid in their acoustic classification.