19 June 2001
HYDROGRAPHIC
MULTIBEAM PROCESSING SYSTEM (HMPS)
SWATH ALIGNMENT TOOL (SAT) VERSION 1.1
J. Hammack
Naval Research Laboratory
Stennis Space Center, MS 39529-5004
D. Fabre
Neptune Science
Slidell, LA
B. Reed
Naval Oceanographic Office
Stennis Space Center, MS 39529-5004
J. Hughes-Clarke
University of New Brunswick
Canada
Abstract
The Mapping, Charting, and Geodesy Branch the Naval Research Laboratory in conjunction with Neptune Science, Incorporated; and the University of New Brunswick have developed software for the determination of system alignment errors and the verification of system performance for fixed-mount multibeam swath sonar systems. The HMPS SAT is designed to work with Generic Sensor Format (GSF) data files now in use by the Naval Oceanographic Office for the processing of hydrographic sonar data. The use of GSF allows the software to be used for the identification of alignment errors on various swath sonar Systems without modification. Among them have been an Oceanographic Remotely Controlled Automaton (ORCA) vessel with its Simrad BM-1000 multibeam and the BM-121A mounted to a TAGS-60 vessel. One of the authors recently attended the United States/Canada Hydrographic Commission Coastal Multibeam Training Course and was able to use the SAT with Reson SEABAT 9001 data which was stored in GSF.
The alignment software has also been designed in a modular fashion using standard programming languages and techniques. It has been tested on several computer systems, including Silicon Graphics, Hewlett-Packard, DEC Alpha, and Sun workstations. It has also been ported to a Pentium PC computer system running Linux. It can be used at sea for the determination of system errors before beginning a survey, during a survey as a means of quality control, and ashore during post processing to verify proper system performance.
Sponsored by the Oceanographer of the Navy via the Naval Oceanographic Office.
Presented at
the Canadian Hydrographic Conference 1998, March 10-12, 1998.
Naval Research Laboratory Contribution Number NRL/PP/7441-97-0018.
Conference Proceedings