METHOD OF MEASURING BOTTOM COORDINATES WITH MULTI-BEAM ECHO SOUNDER Russian patent published in 2015 - IPC G01S15/88 

FIELD: physics.

SUBSTANCE: method of measuring bottom coordinates with a multi-beam echo sounder includes emitting a probing signal; receiving echo signals with a static fan of vertical directional characteristics with different inclination angles; measuring sound speed at the reception depth; determining the vertical directional characteristic having a zero inclination angle α₀; measuring therefor the propagation time of the echo signal to the bottom and back T_vert; measuring sound speed at the reception depth C₀; determining the depth of the underkeel H_k = 0.5C₀T_vert; finding the average value of the gradient of variation of sound speed on depth g from the formula using a numerical iteration method; measuring the propagation time of the echo signal on each of the inclined beams T_{i incl} with inclination angle α_i; determining the depth H_i for the selected directional characteristic with angle α_i from the formula using a numerical iteration method; determining the horizontal distance from the receiver to the reflecting portion of the bottom for the selected directional characteristic using the formula where is displayed on the graph of coordinates of the measured point at the bottom H_i and D_i.

EFFECT: eliminating the beam refraction effect and faster measurement.

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