SNIPPETS / SIDESCAN BACKSCATTER
SeaBat 8160
Operator‟s Manual
Page 111
October 6, 2011
Version 5
located high above the seafloor, so a wide swath can be measured. For best
sidescan measurements, the transducer should ideally be close to the seafloor,
looking out sideways to measure reflection and create shadows from a low
incident angle.
Because of these varying procedures, a decision should be made as to the
requirements of the survey and one of the techniques compromised accordingly.
F.3.2 Technical Specifications
The following table provides information regarding the technical specifications of
the sidescan feature.
Table 29: MBES Sidescan Specifications
Specification
Value
Swath Width
Range Resolution
Range
Sample Rate
Resolution
5-750m
7109.375Hz
10cm
1,000
– 1,500m
3554.688Hz
20cm
1,750
– 5,000m
1184.896Hz
60cm
Along-Track Beamwidth
1.5
Output Format
Digital, Ethernet, UDP Protocol
F.3.3 Technical Details
The bathymetry and sidescan data are independent both in the beamforming
process and in how the output data is used.
F.3.3.1
Sidescan Beamforming
The beamforming process combines one half of the bathymetry beams (beams 0
to 62 for port and beams 63 to 125 for starboard) into two sidescan beams. The
process combines adjacent pairs of beams by averaging and then combining the
averages by selecting the brightest points from the averaged beams. The
combination process uses peak detect determination and yields a less “noisy”
output.
