Multibeam echosounder

A multibeam echosounder is a type of sonar that is used to map the seabed. Like other sonar systems, multibeam systems emit sound waves in a fan shape beneath a ship's hull. The amount of time it takes for the sound waves to bounce off the seabed and return to a receiver is used to determine water depth. Unlike other sonars, multibeam systems use beamforming to extract directional information from the returning soundwaves, producing a swath of depth readings from a single ping.

Multibeam sonar sounding systems, also known as swathe (British English) or swath (American English), originated for military applications. The Sonar Array Sounding System (SASS) was developed in the early 1960s by the US Navy, in conjunction with General Instrument to map large swaths of the ocean floor to assist the underwater navigation of its submarine force. SASS was tested aboard the USS Compass Island (AG-153). The final array system, composed of sixty-one one degree beams with a swath width of approximately 1.15 times water depth, was then installed on the USNS Bowditch (T-AGS-21), USNS Dutton (T-AGS-22) and USNS Michelson (T-AGS-23).

Starting in the 1970s, companies such as General Instrument (now SeaBeam Instruments, part of L3 Klein) in the United States, Krupp Atlas (now Atlas Hydrographic) and Elac Nautik (now part of L3 Communications) in Germany, Simrad (now Kongsberg Maritime) in Norway and RESON in Denmark developed systems that could be mounted to the hull of large ships, and then small boats (as technologies improved and operating frequencies increased).

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