The advantages, challenges and practical implementation of an interferometric swath bathymetry system

Abstract

To produce an interferometric swath bathymetry system requires a good understanding of transducer design parameters and meticulous attention to the details of the design, which can affect the phase measuring process. In the Deepscan sonars, the challenges of these technologies have been addressed to produce a repeatable, quantifiable sonar system to augment the surveyor's conventional armory of sidescan and multibeam systems. In deep water, the coverage achieved by multibeam systems is high, but at the expense of resolution, in shallow water, the resolution is high but the coverage limited. For route surveying and surveillance, the Deepscan system offers depth independent high-resolution simultaneous sidescan and swath bathymetry.