PROCESSING OF SEAMARC SWATH SONAR DATA

Since sonar was first applied to mapping the ocean floor, the volume and resolution of the data have systematically increased, providing geologists with a continually improving view of the seabed. This paper describes the acquisition and processing of data collected by a recently developed class of high-resolution sonar systems, the SeaMARC swath mapping sonars. The SeaMARC system has two basic configurations: Deep-towed, which acquires high-resolution backscatter imagery at slow survey speeds, and shallow-towed, which simultaneously acquires lower resolution backscatter and bathymtrie information at higher speeds. Processing techniques applied to the data after acquisition are fairly independent of the initial towing configuration and include: Compaction of the original data by decimation; radiometric corrections (noise removal, destriping, beam pattern correction, and contrast enhancement); derivation and merging of vehicle navigation with the sonar data; integration of backscatter and bathymetric information; and geometric corrections for plotting data in geographic coordinates. © 1990 IEEE