METHOD OF DETERMINING SOUND SPEED Russian patent published in 2017 - IPC G01B17/02 

FIELD: measuring equipment.

SUBSTANCE: method for determining sound propagation speed comprises radiating a sounding signal, receiving echoes by the static fan of the directional characteristics, measuring the propagation time of the signals, the sequential sounding signals are radiated through the time T in the direction of a stationary or a slow-moving object, the echo signals are received by the static fan of the directional characteristics in the horizontal direction, the propagation times are measured, the difference in the propagation times of two sequential echo-signals (U_rad1-t_rec1) - (t_rad2-t_rec2), the velocity of the own motion V_own is measured, the ship course C⁰ is determined, the direction to the reflector P⁰is determined, the angle between the motion direction and the reflector position of or the heading angle to the target q⁰=(C⁰-P⁰) is determined, and if q⁰ is less than 10⁰ and is the same with two assumptions, the closing speed or a radial component of the own speed relative to the position of a fixed object is determined by the formula V_cl=V_own cosq⁰, and the sound speed on the path is determined by the formula: V_sound=2 V_own cosq⁰T /{(t_rad1-t_rad1)-(t_rec2-t_rec2)}.

EFFECT: providing the ability to measure the sound speed along the path, obtaining real results by the variability of the sound speed along the path during the measurement process using a single hydroacoustic measurement channel.

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