Development of Ocean Acoustic Equipment (Sonar) and Application to Deep Sea Exploration

Abstract

Currently, deep-sea exploration in Japan is conducted almost exclusively by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC). JAMSTEC, which was established in 1971, owned no vessels until the 1980s and could not expect much budget for deep-sea exploration from the government. Under such circumstances, we introduced the first US-made deep-sea exploration sonar system in Japan and have been operating it while learning related techniques. I will also explain we to successfully discovered a sunken ship (from World War II) and a crashed rocket engine using various domestically produced sonars.