2009 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
Acoustic signals and data acquisition
Author : Dr Philippe Blondel, C.Geol., F.G.S., Ph.D., M.Sc.
Published in: The Handbook of Sidescan Sonar
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
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Acoustics is the best and often the only means to investigate the water column and seabed efficiently and accurately. There is a large variety of instruments now available, and sonar mapping systems can be roughly divided into three categories: single-beam echo-sounders, multibeam echo-sounders, and sidescan sonars (
Figure 2.1
).
Figure 2.1.
The main sonar mapping systems are (from left to right) the single-beam echo-sounder, aiming straight below the surveying vessel and imaging a wide portion of seabed (and sub-seabed) at once; the multibeam echosounder, made of narrower beams and mapping a wide swath of seabed across the track of the surveying vessel; and the sidescan sonar, often towed separately and close to the seabed, imaging at grazing angles (adapted from the EC-ISACS project
http://www.ntnu.no/ISACS/
).