Basic Study of Synthetic Aperture Sonar and Experimental Results at Acoustic Tank

Abstract

Synthetic Aperture Sonar has a great advantage of high azimuth resolution compared with legacy side scan sonar. Calculating theoretical resolution of Synthetic Aperture Sonar, it needs approximations and limitations to express that as elementary mathematics. In this study, we discuss an influence on resolution by these mathematical approximations and limitations. We had made a trial Synthetic Aperture Sonar to study basic characters both of theory and experiment. As a result of our experiment at acoustic tank, it is turn out that resolutions on experiment, simulation and theory are same. And we discuss about conditions to achieve theoretical resolutions at sea area.