Abstract
In recent decades, imaging sonar has been the most widely employed remote sensing instruments in the field of underwater detection. The multibeam echo sounder (MBES) plays an important role in obtaining high-accuracy seabed topography. However, the resolution of the MBES substantially decreases with the increasing distance. Synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) achieves constant resolution on the along-track, improving the fineness of the image. However, conventional side-scan SAS usually only achieves 2D images, and gaps always exist. In this modeling and experimental research paper, we propose a novel underwater acoustic imaging scheme to improve the imaging performance of MBES, based on the complementarity of MBES and SAS systems. We design a 2D transducer array to increase the detection efficiency and obtain spatial gain. Moreover, the processing scheme is analyzed to design the working parameters in actual engineering applications. We exploit a target echo simulation approach to establish the research basics of the imaging algorithms, which also reflects the shapes and shadows of targets to match actual situations as realistically as possible. The proposed imaging algorithm synthesizes a virtual aperture receiving array on the along-track and reserves the multi-element manifold on the across-track. This helps to improve the imaging quality of the MBES and achieves high-resolution 3D detection with no gaps. Simulation and tank experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme can significantly improve the detection ability of the MBES, especially for small 3D target detection, thus making it suitable for 3D high-resolution underwater detection applications.
Highlights
Imaging sonar systems are major remote sensing instruments that require a high resolution to guarantee detection accuracy that has many technology branches [1]
We propose a novel underwater acoustic imaging scheme to improve the imaging performance of multibeam echo sounder (MBES), based on the complementarity of MBES and Synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) systems
The Multibeam synthetic aperture sonar (MBSAS) system is designed to enhance the performance of conventional underwater imaging instruments
Summary
Imaging sonar systems are major remote sensing instruments that require a high resolution to guarantee detection accuracy that has many technology branches [1]. Synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) is used as a kind of imaging sonar that can provide a constant high resolution on the along-track, independent of the echo frequency and distance [5,6]. SAS systems are usually based on the echo model of side-scan sonar (SSS), which introduces disadvantages such as the gap problem and have to employ an additional MBES as the gap filler [7,8]. Multibeam synthetic aperture sonar (MBSAS) is proposed as a novel imaging sonar technology that effectively overcomes the disadvantages of MBES and SAS but has been rarely researched. MBSAS could be achieved through the MBES scheme or other 2D transducer arrays and is suitable to be employed in the field of detailed underwater surveys. We discuss the working conditions and prospect of the novel device
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