Benefits of dolphin inspired sonar for underwater object identification

Abstract

The sonar of dolphins has developed over many years of evolution and has achieved excellent performance levels. With this inspiration, wideband acoustic methods for underwater sensing are being developed. In this paper we explore what we expect to gain from the wide bio-inspired beampattern of such a sonar. The system employed here (the BioSonar) uses wideband sensors based on dolphin sonar, covering a frequency band from around 30kHz to 150kHz and having a frequency dependent beamwidth considerably larger than that of conventional imaging sonars. We highlight the benefits of the transducers' beamwidth, indicating how these properties may be exploited to give improved sonar performance. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.