  In this paper we present a strategy for the the synthesis of acoustic sources
with controllable near fields in free space and finite depth homogeneous ocean
environments. We first present the theoretical results at the basis of our
discussion and then, to illustrate our findings we focus on the following three
particular examples:
  1. acoustic source approximating a prescribed field pattern in a given
bounded sub- region of its near field. 2. acoustic source approximating
different prescribed field patterns in given disjoint bounded near field
sub-regions. 3. acoustic source approximating a prescribed back-propagating
field in a given bounded near field sub-region while maintaining a very low far
field signature.
  For each of these three examples, we discuss the optimization scheme used to
approx- imate their solutions and support our claims through relevant numerical
simulations.
