Stn Atlas Elektronik Gmbh

Holger Klindt

Benno Freking

Burckhard Aechter

A method is provided for measuring the acoustic backscatter property of the floor of a body of water in which an acoustic multibeam echosounder employed on a ship is used to measure the sonic backscattered from a narrow transmission target strip on the sea floor that extends essentially vertically beneath the center of the transmitting antenna, transversely to the travel direction of the ship and which is successively exposed to sonic pulses by the transmitting apparatus. The measured backscatter is converted into sonic backscatter values allocated to receiving strips (115) of the multibeam echosounder. Calibration curves are constructed for all floor elements along the course line of the ship by echosounder measurements during a calibrating operation following a 90.degree. pivot of the echosounder around the vertical axis of the ship. The calibration curves permit an in situ calibration of the sonic backscatter values obtained during the measuring operation, eliminating the influence of the sonic beam angle on the sonic backscatter values so as to result in an unambiguous interpretation of the sonic backscatter values with respect to a definite dependency of local variations in the backscatter measure on changes in the floor sediment.

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Rastede, Germany

Holger Klindt