The MB-System Cookbook

Val Schmidt

LDEO
Research Engineer
Columbia University
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

Dale Chayes

LDEO
Senior Staff Associate/Research Engineer
Columbia University
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

Dave Caress

MBARI
Senior Research Specialist
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Monterey Bay Research Institute

Table of Contents

Version

1. Introduction

1.1. What Is This Document About?
1.2. How Do I Get The Most Current Version?
1.3. What is MB-System
1.4. What Kind of Data Sets Can MB-System be Used On?
1.5. Important Notes Regarding the Data Used in the MB-System Cookbook

2. Multibeam Sonar Basics

2.1. How Sound Travels Through Water

2.1.1. Speed of Sound
2.1.2. The Effects of Sound Speed Errors
2.1.3. Spreading Loss
2.1.4. Absorption
2.1.5. Reverberation

2.2. How Sound Interacts with the Sea Floor

2.3. Acoustic Interference

2.3.1. Radiated Noise or Self Noise
2.3.2. Flow Noise
2.3.3. Bubble Sweep Down
2.3.4. Cross Talk

2.4. Signal to Noise Ratio

2.5. Swath Mapping Sonar Systems

2.5.1. Multibeam Echo Sounders MBES
2.5.2. Sidescan Swath Bathymetric Sonars SSBS

3. Surveying Your Survey with MB-System

3.1. Managing Your Data With mbdatalist
3.2. Plotting Data
3.3. Extracting Statistics

4. Processing Multibeam Data with MB-System

4.1. Overview

4.1.1. Many Types of Sonar
4.1.2. Strategy

4.2. Identifying the MB-System Data Format

4.3. Format Conversion

4.3.1. Background
4.3.2. SeaBeam 2100
4.3.3. Converting Your Data

4.4. Survey and Organize the Data

4.4.1. Integrating Your Data into a Larger Set
4.4.2. Organize The Data Set Internally
4.4.3. Ancillary Files
4.4.4. Surveying your Survey - Revisited

4.5. Determine Roll and Pitch Bias

4.5.1. Roll Bias
4.5.2. Pitch Bias

4.6. Determine Correct SSP's

4.6.1. Variations in Sound Speed and Your Data

4.7. Smooth The Navigation Data

4.7.1. MBnavedit

4.8. Flag Erroneous Bathymetry Data

4.8.1. Automated Flagging of Bathymetry
4.8.2. Interactive Flagging of Bathymetry

4.9. Determine Amplitude and Grazing Angle Functions for Side Scan

4.10. The Final Step: Reprocessing the Bathymetry and Sidescan

4.10.1. Mbset
4.10.2. The Parameter File
4.10.3. Mbprocess

5. Advanced Sonar Data Statistics

5.1. Advanced Statistics with mbinfo
5.2. Advanced Statistics with mblist
5.3. Advanced Statistics with mbgrid

A. Acknowledgments

B. MB-System Command Reference

C. Installing MB-System

C.1. Overview
C.2. Downloading MB-System
C.3. Installing GMT and netCDF
C.4. Creating a Directory Structure for MB-System
C.5. Editing "install_makefiles"
C.6. Run install_makefiles and Compile MB-System

D. Other Useful Tools

E. References

E.1. Acoustic References
E.2. Sonar References

F. History of MB-System

G. Shipboard Multi-Beam Sonar Installations

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