Sonar systems for object recognition
Abstract
The deep sea exploration and exploitation is one of the biggest challenges
of the next century. Military, oil & gas, o shore wind farming,
underwater mining, oceanography are some of the actors interested
in this eld. The engineering and technical challenges to perform
any tasks underwater are great but the most crucial element in any
underwater systems has to be the sensors. In air numerous sensor
systems have been developed: optic cameras, laser scanner or radar
systems. Unfortunately electro magnetic waves propagate poorly in
water, therefore acoustic sensors are a much preferred tool then optical
ones. This thesis is dedicated to the study of the present and
the future of acoustic sensors for detection, identi cation or survey.
We will explore several sonar con gurations and designs and their
corresponding models for target scattering. We will show that object
echoes can contain essential information concerning its structure
and/or composition.