The ABCS Program for the Analysis of Echo Sounder Returns for ...

The ABCS Program for the Analysis of EchoSounder Returns for Acoustic BottomClassificationExecutive SummaryThe type of sediment found in a shallow water environment (less than 200 mdepth) has a major effect on the propagation of sound in the water through repeatedbottom interaction. If the propagation loss or acoustic backscatter in an area are to bepredicted the sediment types in this area must be known. Since the sediment type canchange dramatically over short distances in shallow water, the costs involved in takingenough bottom samples and analysing these, even for a small area, could be massive.Therefore investigating a cheaper method of obtaining the sediment type would beworth while.Since the returned signal from a boat’s echo sounder is dependent on the type ofsediment, analysing the shape and energy of the returned signal could give thesediment type. This would be a far cheaper method to obtain the sediment type data.Due to the high frequency ranges used by most echo sounders this method will usuallygive the sediment type for only the thin surface layer of the sea floor.Analysing echo sounder returns has been done before with varied results, butcompanies now doing this work regard their processing as proprietary, and methodsvary from one manufacturer to another.To examine how an echo sounder return changes with different sediment types anEcho Listener device was attached to the Furuno echo sounder on the DSTOSydney work boat and the program ABCS was written to analyse the returned waveforms.ABCS reads the files produced by the Echo Listener, finds the seafloor echo sounderreturns in the signal, and calculates a number of statistics about them.