Prometheus Inc. has simulated, for the first time, real-time broadband torpedo reverberation. The "noiselet" reverberation simulator compares extremely well with the previous Weapons Analysis Facility (WAF, NUWC Newport) reverberation generator with significantly fewer limitations and at lower cost. It outperforms the present WAF reverberation generator for the case of broadband signals. Also, it is not limited to the case of Gaussian noise and does not require any stationary assumptions. Our computations increase linearly with the number of array elements whereas those of the present method used in the WAF increase with the cube of the number of elements. This advance will allow the U.S. Navy to test its torpedoes in real-time at significantly reduced cost. At present, there do not appear to be any obvious drawbacks, and Prometheus is working with the client to test the simulation on real torpedo data.
