An autonomous boat based synthetic aperture sonar

Abstract

This paper describes a Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS) system being developed at the University of Porto to be used in a small autonomous boat for the survey of shallow water environments, such as rivers, deltas, estuaries and dams. Its purpose is to obtain high resolution echo reflectivity maps through synthetic aperture techniques, taking advantage of the high precision navigation system of the boat. In the future the production of bottom tomography maps is also considered through the use of interferometric imaging techniques.