INTEGRATED CONTROL OF MULTIPLE ACOUSTIC SENSORS FOR OPTIMAL SEABED SURVEYING

Abstract This paper presents an integrated acoustic controller system which processes multibeam data in real-time to provide a priori bathymetry data to auxiliary acoustic sensors facilitating the operation of co-located, similar frequency sonar. The automated system is based on the interleaving of the sonar transmission-reception cycles to avoid cross-sensor acoustic interference. By dynamically adapting the ping rates of the payload sensors, the system optimises the execution of the seabed mapping survey, improves the quality of the resulting data and reduces survey time and costs.