Multi‐tip sparker for the generation of acoustic pulses

Sparkers can be used for the production of acoustic pulses as seismic source for sub‐bottom profiling in the sea. A multi‐tip (200‐800 tips) sparker has been developed, which makes high‐resolution seismic profiling possible in deep water. The characteristics of the multi‐tip sparker system have been measured in a basin in the laboratory using different arrangements of the capacitive energy storage and salinity of the water. A model in Matlab is used to calculate the current waveform in the spark array for different layouts of the power supply.