ACTIVE SONAR SYSTEM

Ridho Dinata
Hydrography Laboratory, Faculty of Earth Sciences and Technology, Institute of Technology, Bandung, Indonesia
ridhodinata@studens.itera..itb.ac.id
Sonar (originally an acronym for SOund Navigation And Ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation
(usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, communicate with or detect objects on or under the
surface of the water, such as other vessels.
active sonar is emitting pulses of sounds and listening for echoes. Sonar may be used as a means of acoustic location
and of measurement of the echo characteristics of "targets" in the water.
In active sonar there are two performance limitations, due to noise and reverberation. In general one or other of these
will dominate so that the two effects can be initially considered separately.

NL dominated
SL 2TL + TS (NL DI) = DT
where SL is the source level, TL is the transmission loss (or propagation loss), TS is the target strength, NL is
the noise level, DI is the directivity index of the array, and DT is the detection threshold.

RL dominated
SL 2TL + TS = RL + DT
where RL is the reverberation level and the other factors are as before.

References:
Halvorsen et al. (2013) conclude that observed effects were "typically small even though the fish were
near the sonar and remained there for the full duration of three test signals"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonar
Fahy, Frank (1998). Fundamentals of noise and vibration. John Gerard Walker. Taylor & Francis.
p. 375. ISBN 0-419-24180-9.
Hill, M. N. (1962). Physical Oceanography. Allan R. Robinson. Harvard University Press. p. 498.