Demonstration of the advantages offered by an ultra-wideband (100–400 kHz) sonar system for simultaneous planar imaging, volumetric imaging and Doppler in harbour survailance applications

This paper demonstrates the advantages of an ultra-wide bandwidth sonar system in harbour surveillance applications, where simultaneous planar imaging, volumetric imaging and pulse Doppler operation is required. A prototype ultra-wideband (100-400 kHz) sonar system composed of a receiving line array (64 elements), a single element curved transmitting array, and an additional multi-element curved transmitting array (32 elements in the vertical plane) has been developed to meet the requirements. The system was tested under controlled conditions. The results demonstrated that this novel sonar system achieved an ultra-fine range resolution of 5mm (using 150 kHz of bandwidth) and simultaneous planar and volumetric imaging. The Doppler capability of the system was also tested successfully and a video will be presented at the conference.