Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to underwater acoustical systems, methods for using underwater acoustical systems, and methods for processing and using the data they produce.
Discussion of the Related Art
A month after the Titanic struck an iceberg in 1912, English meteorologist Lewis Richardson filed a patent at the British Patent Office for an underwater ranging device. Modern day successors to Richardson's invention are often referred to as SONAR (sound navigation and ranging) devices. Among these devices are ones using transducer arrays to project sound or pressure waves through a liquid medium and transducer arrays to receive corresponding echoes from features that scatter and/or reflect impinging waves.
Information about these features and their environment can be derived from the echoes. For example, bathymetric surveys provide information about the depth of scattering centers, water column surveys provide information about scattering centers in the water column, and seafloor characterization surveys provide information about scattering centers at the seafloor surface and below the seafloor surface.