Work

MNAT: A Simulation Tool for Underwater Radiated Noise

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Shipping expansion, offshore energy generation, fish farming, and construction work radiate high levels of underwater noise, which may critically stress marine ecosystems. Tools for simulating, analyzing, and forecasting underwater noise can be of great help in understanding the impact of underwater radiated noise both on the environment and on man-made equipment, such as underwater communication and telemetry systems. To address this challenge, we developed a web-based Marine Noise Analysis Tool (MNAT) that models, simulates, and predicts underwater radiated noise levels. To reproduce realistic shipping conditions, MNAT combines real-time Automatic Identification System data with environmental data using broadly accepted underwater acoustic propagation models, including Bellhop and RAM. Moreover, MNAT can simulate other kinds of noise sources, such as seismic airguns. It features an intuitive interface enabling real-time tracking, noise impact assessment, and interactive visualizations. MNAT’s noise modeling capabilities allow the user to design resilient communication systems in different noise conditions, analyze maritime noise data, and forecast future noise levels, with potential contributions to the design of noise-resilient systems, to the optimization of environmental monitoring device deployments, and to noise mitigation policymaking. MNAT has been made available for the community at a public GIT repository.

Source: Journal of Marine Science and Engineering

DOI: 10.3390/jmse13112045

Authors: Mohammad Rasoul Tanhatalab, Paolo Casari

Institution: University of Trento

Language: English

Topic: Underwater Acoustics Research

Subfield: Oceanography

Field: Earth and Planetary Sciences

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Life below water

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,137