ICE THICKNESS MEASURING METHOD Russian patent published in 2015 - IPC G01B17/02 

FIELD: measurement equipment.

SUBSTANCE: high-frequency sounding hydroacoustic signals are emitted from an underwater position of the carrier in ice direction; signals reflected from ice are received; submersion depth H of the carrier is measured; reflected echo signals are by a fan of narrow-band characteristics in horizontal plane in the range of the front semi-sphere; subsequent composition of temporal implementations is performed for all spatial directivity characteristics. Then, the following is performed: subsequent analogue-to-digital conversion of a signal, in-series coherent processing, measurement of interference level as per the first cycle of composition as an average value of all amplitude components for all spatial channels A_interference, selection of a threshold, determination of amplitude of the echo signal that exceeded the threshold for each spatial channel, measurement of echo signal amplitude A_echo, measurement of the spatial channel number, determination of distance D, as per the measured submersion depth H and the measured distance D, determination of an echo signal reflection angle as Q°=arcsinH/D. Echo signals are selected, which have a reflection angle in the range of 10°-30° and belong to those directivity characteristics that are located from the movement direction through an angle of not more than 30 degrees for the selected echo signals, determination of contrast coefficient by the formula: S(Q)=A_echo/A_water, and ice thickness is determined by the formula: T_ice=S(Q)×70k, where k - correction factor related to peculiar features of equipment calibration.

EFFECT: remote automatic measurement of ice thickness in movement direction of equipment carrier.

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