A Post-Processing Method for the Removal of Refraction Artifacts in Multibeam Bathymetry Data

Abstract

Sound refraction artifacts are often present in multibeam swath bathymetry data. For a flat array, the artifacts are usually more serious in outer beams than in inner beams. In a 3D topographical mapping they appear as ridges that parallel the tracks of the vessel. To shorten the survey time, the outer beams should be utilized as often as possible. Therefore, the refraction errors should be removed. In this paper, we present a model of reduced sound speed profile that consists of three water layers. The sound speed of the two upper layers has a constant gradient, and the third layer has the same sound speed as the most bottom measured layer. The model parameters can be searched based on the principle of the minimum difference of depth between the overlap of two neighboring swaths. The horizontal position and depth of each beam can be accordingly recalculated using the model parameters. To avoid being trapped in local optimum, the initial search scope is limited according to assumed lunch angle and travel time in each subregion. The method is verified by comparing the simulated and real data.

Keywords:

• Multibeam sonar
• SSP
• refraction
• artifact

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the project of National Nature Science Foundation of China, Contract 40506023 and 40506017.