A method for the removal of ray refraction effects in multibeam echo sounder systems.

To a multibeam echo sounder system (MBES), under water sound refraction plays an important role in depth measurement accuracy, and errors in sound velocity profile lead to inaccuracies in the measured depth (especially for outer beams). A method is developed to estimate the sound velocity profile based on the depth measured by vertical beam. Using this depth and other parameters, such as t (sound pulse propagation time), θ (beam inclination angle), etc. We can estimate a simple sound velocity profile with which the depth error has been reduced. This method has been tested with a real dataset acquired in the East China Sea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]