PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. – Dr. Timothy M. Marston, a Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division (NSWC PCD) research scientist, received the prestigious Meritorious Civilian Service Award on Friday, Feb. 1, 2013 for his technical achievements in synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) signal processing.
"Your recent technical achievement in the field of synthetic aperture sonar signal processing as applied to the detection, classification, and identification of underwater mines and UneXploded Ordnance (UXO) has been of significance to the Department of the Navy and warrants special recognition,” said NSWC PCD Commanding Officer Capt. Scott Pratt.
Marston, native of Pullman, Wash., earned a Ph.D. in 2009 and a Master of Science in 2006, both in acoustics from Pennsylvania State University, and a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Seattle Pacific University in 2004.
Presently, Marston leads the signal processing research for the Advanced SONAR group in the Science, Technology, Analysis and Simulation Department. Department Head Dr. Kerry Commander said Marston is recognized globally for his innovative signal processing research.
“Dr. Marston is an internationally recognized technical expert in the field of synthetic aperture sonar signal processing,” said Dr. Commander. “He has worked with scientists and engineers within the Department of Defense community to develop and implement novel processing methods to enhance SAS capability, robustness and performance as applied to Mine Warfare and the UXO problems. Since his arrival at NSWC PCD in 2010, Marston has led research in the development of sophisticated signal processing methods for linear and circumnavigating SAS systems. He has demonstrated these methods using field data acquired with NSWC PCD’s Small Synthetic Aperture Minehunter system.
"Dr. Marston's extensive contributions include techniques and concepts related to: auto-focus, motion estimation and compensation, computational efficient wide beam wide band frequency domain image reconstruction, bathymetry, and circular SAS,” said Commander. "Marston has used these novel techniques to demonstrate imagery of near-ID quality against bottom targets. He has also developed visualization techniques to convey the rich amount of information generated by multi-frequency and multi-aspect SAS systems into a single image with an intuitive interpretation."
Dr. Marston has also adapted tomographic imaging algorithms employed in the medical field to SAS applications and has coupled them with data driven auto-focus techniques resulting in circular SAS (CSAS) imagery with unique and impressive levels of fidelity and detail. Dr. Marston's combined approach is the first ever demonstration yielding consistent high-fidelity imagery, without the need for reference beacons.
Dr. Marston is a member of the Acoustical Society of America and has been published in 16 different technical publications.
The Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division is the Navy's Technical Center of Excellence for Littoral Warfare and Coastal Defense.