High-Quality Picture Technology for Fishery Scanning Sonar

Buried Object Scanning Sonar for AUVs

A 252 channel FM sonar is developed to generate images of objects buried in sediments using reflection tomography. An omnidirectional source, transmitting FM pulses over the band of 2 to 12 kHz, illuminates buried targets. The backscattered signals are measured with 252 hydrophones and processed with a digital matched filter. Coherent nearfield focusing generates a 3D map of acoustic intensity ...

Scalable High-Quality 3D Scanning

Environmentally Adaptive Sonar Technology

Our technical approach is aimed at two basic problems with undersea warfare: (1) knowing the environment, and (2) adapting the sensor to the environment to maximize sensor performance. A consequence of (1) in this approach is that the knowledge of the environment, along with accurate sensor performance models, provides more accurate feedback to an operator about current sensor performance, a re...

SONAR TECHNOLOGY - PAST and CURRENT

The changes in the political climate in recent years have significantly changed the way in which military sonar systems are designed and procured. Prior to 1990, military requirements were a major technology pull for technology developments, with large military research budgets funding semiconductor, system and software research. However, the end of the cold war brought major changes in the per...

High-speed Processors for Sonar

The Applied Physics Laboratory and its subcontractors have been leaders in the development of programmable sonar signal processors for 19 years. Several novel architectures for both hardware and software have resulted, giving APL the most powerful sonar signal-processing facilities in the United States. This article traces the historical evolution of sonar-processing hardware, with emphasis on ...