The broadband plane-wave model is valid only in the far-field of a point source under free-field propagating conditions. However the acoustics in ocean is characterised by multi-modal acoustic propagation due to its topbottom limited boundary conditions. The effect of multi-modal field is to alter the source spectrum while the effect of dispersion is to modify the pulse shape. Moreover, using a plane-wave beam former in a multi-modal field leads to bias in the bearing estimates. These effects are highly dependant on the environment parameters and have important ramification for target localisation and classification in an ocean waveguide. A more realistic simulator has been proposed which essentially models these effects and therefore serves to provide test signals for first-hand verification of signal processing algorithms to be developed for such scenarios. This model is to be understood as a better model than the naïve plane-wave model which is entirely oblivious of even the gross features such as wave propagation in an oceanic waveguide. The channel parameter so estimated from the present simulation can be convolved with the radiated noise spectra of the source to generate passive sonar signal.

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