MULTIBEAM ECHOSOUNDERS Kevin Nathanael Sibarani Faculty of Earth Sciences and Technology, Institute of Technology, Bandung, Indonesia kevin.sibarani@students.itb.ac.

id Multibeam echo sounders (MBES), like other sonar systems, transmit sound energy and analyze the return signal (echo) that has bounced off the seafloor or other objects. Multibeam echo sounders systems measure and record the time for the acoustic signal to travel from transmitter (transducer) to the seafloor and back to the receiver. Multibeam echosounders produce a swath of soundings to ensure full coverage of an area.

Figure 1. Multibeam sonar swath. In order to determine the transmit and receive angle of each beam, multibeam echosounders requires accurate measurement of the motion of the sonar relative to a Cartesian coordinate system. The measured values are typically heave, pitch, roll, yaw, and heading. Many MBES systems are capable of recording acoustic backscatter data. Multibeam backscatter is intensity data that can be processed to create low resolution imagery. Nowadays hydrographic survey units use multibeam echosounder systems to acquire full and partial bottom bathymetric coverage throughout a survey area, to determine least depths over critical items such as wrecks, obstructions, and dangers-to-navigation, and for general object detection. From Website: http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/hsd/multibeam.html