Geoacoustic inversion using a rotated coordinate system and simulated annealing

An efficient method for geoacoustic inversions in a range-dependent ocean waveguide is implemented and tested with synthetic data. This method combines a simulated annealing search with an optimal coordinate rotation that increases the efficiency of navigating parameter landscapes for which parameter coupling is important. The coordinate rotation associated with the parameter couplings also provides information about which parameters are resolvable for a particular inversion frequency and array geometry. Using this information, results from several single-frequency inversions can be combined to obtain an estimate for the sediment parameters.