A Sound Speed Profile Construction Method With Surface Sound Speed Constraints

There are common sound speed errors resulting from insufficient density of sound speed profile (SSP) stations in a multibeam survey. The existing methods typically use empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis to create new SSPs that can mitigate sounding errors coursed by sound speed errors, but they are often inefficient due to their iterative nature. To address this issue, we propose a method for constructing SSPs with surface sound speeds (SSSs) constraints to reduce the sounding errors. This method begins by standardizing the measured SSPs through unified stratification, followed by the clustering of the standardized SSPs (SSSPs). Next, the clustered SSSPs, along with highly accurate SSSs from the transducer, are utilized to estimate the parameters for the inverse distance weighting (IDW)-based spatiotemporal interpolation formula. Finally, the determined formula is employed in the depth direction to construct an interpolated SSP (ISSP), which is then used to correct sounding errors. Experiments verified the proposed method and the results show that the root mean squares (RMSs) of the sounding errors improved by approximately 83%, decreasing from 1.169 m of the alternative SSP (ASSP) to 0.202 m of the ISSP. Additionally, the computational time of the ISSP was reduced by a factor of 67 compared to the EOF method.