An acoustic ground discrimination system to mapping sea-bed feature classes

Abstract

An Acoustic Ground Discrimination System (AGDS) able to extract an information of the nature of the feature on the seabed. AGDS compared with satellite imagery are abnormally and rarely used in tropical environments although is easier to operate and friendly produces an amount of digital data. This study aimed to assess acoustic survey of sea-bed benthic classes using RoxAnn ™ AGDS in the north of Langkawi Island. Sea-bed benthic classes were categorized into six levels of classes using hierarchical classification of field data. Using the independent data, classes and signal of the nature seabed were identified (library) of RoxAnn ™ created and represent by number coding. These accuracies are assumed are conservative because of constraints during this study including quantitative data for discriminating class types. The class type changes between AGDS and accuracy assessments surveys and environments condition. Despite these limitation, AGDS accuracy level are high and more accurate compare to those satellite achievement and it has advantages including greater water penetration and unaffected from cloud cover. An Acoustic data are useful tools for mapping the tropical habitat and complementary to satellite data.