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The word sounding is used for all types of depth measurements, including those that don't use sound, and is unrelated in origin to the word sound in the sense of noise or tones. Echo sounding is a more rapid method of measuring depth than the previous technique of lowering a sounding line until it touched bottom.
Echo sounding is a process used to determine the depth of water beneath ships and boats. A type of active sonar, echo sounding is the transmission of an acoustic pulse directly downwards to the seabed, measuring the time between transmission and echo return, after having hit the bottom and bouncing back to its ship of origin.
The basic components of the scientific echo sounder hardware function is to transmit the sound, receive, filter and amplify, record, and analyze the echoes. While there are many manufacturers of commercially available "fish-finders," quantitative analysis requires that measurements be made with calibrated echo sounder equipment, having high ...
Historically the sounding line was used. In modern times, echo sounding is used for measuring the seabed in the open sea. When measuring the safe depth of water over an entire obstruction, such as a shipwreck , the minimum depth is checked by sweeping the area with a length of horizontal wire .
A sailor and a man on shore, both sounding the depth with a line. Depth sounding, often simply called sounding, is measuring the depth of a body of water. Data taken from soundings are used in bathymetry to make maps of the floor of a body of water, such as the seabed topography. Soundings were traditionally shown on nautical charts in fathoms ...
The time it takes for the sound waves to reflect off the seabed and return to the receiver is used to calculate the water depth. Unlike other sonars and echo sounders , MBES uses beamforming to extract directional information from the returning soundwaves, producing a swath of depth soundings from a single ping.
Echo sounding is effectively a special purpose application of sonar used to locate the bottom. Since a traditional pre-SI unit of water depth was the fathom, an instrument used for determining water depth is sometimes called a fathometer. The first practical fathometer was invented by Herbert Grove Dorsey and patented in 1928. [8]
Scientific echosounder equipment is built to exacting standards and tested to be stable and reliable in the transmission and receiving of sound energy under the water. Recent advances have led to the development of the digital scientific echosounder , further enhancing the reliability and precision with which these systems operate.