Modelling the seafloor 3D relief and its reconstruction from multibeam sonar data

The simple, real-time procedure for seafloor relief reconstruction and simultaneous seabed type identification using echo data from hypothetical multibeam sonar system was proposed. The algorithm was tested using artificially generated relief and seabed type data. In the first stage, 3D surface of seafloor was generated, using the inverse Fourier transformation of the 2D spatial frequency spectrum of power law form. In the second stage, the generation. of the set of multibeam sonar data, which simulated echoes collected from seabed, was performed with account for the distances from transducer to particular surface elements, scattering coefficient and the angles of insonification. Finally, the spatial form of seabed was reconstructed using the simulated data, while bottom type was identified simultaneously using estimated angular dependence of backscattering coefficient. The obtained results showed the good performance of the proposed reconstruction procedure for artificial data and suggested verification of the algorithm using real data.