A Universal Experimental System for Underwater Acoustical Imaging

Since human activities of ocean exploration and development increase day by day, two-dimension (C-mode scanning) and three-dimension high resolution acoustical imaging are more and more needed. People’s interests are not only in detecting the presence, bearing and distance of undersea objects by the traditional sonar, but also in getting their shape or geometry information with enough details. The undersea video camera can get images with much higher resolution. However, in undersea case, the visible distance of video camera is very limited, while the distance information of the object is more easily obtained in acoustical imaging process. Therefore, especially in middle distance (5–30 metres), acoustical imaging is a preferable choice.