Modeling a 300 kHz bathymetric sonar system

Abstract

The Deep Submergence Laboratory has developed a family of calibrated high frequency bathymetric sonar systems for underwater survey. It is useful to have a detailed mathematical description of these systems to assist in data processing. A model of a generalized sonar system is developed first. This model then is made specific to the DSL 300-kHz forward scanning sonar and is implemented using the MATLAB software package. The model consists of a cascaded series of filters representing the electrical and mechanical components of the system. The model is adjusted after comparison to the transmitted pulse. The results are then inverted to demonstrate how the corrupting effects of the system can be reversed. A technique is developed for applying this reverse model to actual data. The results showed that a good representation of the system can be implemented using relatively simple descriptions of each component. The most important components are the band-limiting filter and the transducer. It is possible to reverse model these components with good results.