Simulating the feasibility of Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS) for Great Lakes fisheries monitoring

Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS) has been used successfully in continental shelf regions as a method of monitoring fish populations. In this work, we explore the application of OAWRS to a region of Lake Superior as a tool for observing fish behavior on an ecologically important spawning bed, Buffalo Reef. Buffalo Reef provides a challenging area to image with OAWRS due to the varying bathymetry. To demonstrate feasibility for future experiments, we perform beam tracing simulations showing the insonification region we can use to monitor Buffalo Reef’s spawning beds from a practical source and receiver array location. We also simulate impulse responses anticipated for a solid fish target, which can be extended to more realistic fish school responses with additional simulation work.