The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 22, 1995
Filed:
Sep. 08, 1994
Bretton L Douglas, Santa Barbara, CA (US);
Sonatech, Inc., Santa Barbara, CA (US);
Abstract
A signal processing system for determining sea floor composition based on the frequency waveform and Doppler shift transmitted from an acoustic penetrometer includes a hydrophone for receiving the penetrometer waveform. The hydrophone output is digitized and passed to a general purpose computer where it is analyzed by a signal processing program. The signal processing program performs various signal transformations to increase the quality of the input waveform and isolates a penetration event. Additionally, the input signal is converted to an equivalent velocity waveform. A curve fitting algorithm is then used to determine the points within the velocity waveform that mark the initiation and termination of the penetration event that corresponds to the impact of the penetrometer with the sea floor. Once the initiation and termination of the penetration event are known, the velocity waveform is numerically integrated between those two points. The result of the numerical integration calculates the depth of penetration achieved during the penetration event. Based on the depth of penetration and other data, such as size and weight of the penetrometer, the composition of the sea floor at the point of impact may be characterized.