JPS61151488A - Sonic depth finder - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain an sonic depth finder capable of knowing the state of the forward, left and right depths of water of a ship navigating a narrow water channel or a sea area where the sea bottom has violent irregularity, by constituting said apparatus so that the azimuth angle and the angle of inclination of transmitting and receiving beam can be controlled at every depth sounding. CONSTITUTION:Transmitting and receiving beam 73 is formed from the transmitting and receiving part mounted to a ship 71 toward an azimuth angle (b) and angle of inclination (a) to calculate the oblique distance (l) up to the reflective surface 78 of the sea bottom. Therefore, the depth of water D, horizontal distance H, forward distance F and lateral distance W of the reflective surface 78 of the sea bottom based on the ship 71 and the advance direction thereof are calculated. Programs each prescribing depth sounding with respect to the azimuth angle (b) and the angle of inclination (a) are preliminarily fabricated with due regard to various use conditions and a sonic depth finder is and depth- of-water information is collected to enable the display or recording of the data necessary for operation.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (Field of Industrial Application) The present invention relates to an acoustic sounding device, and in particular, it has a ranging function in an oblique direction in addition to direct sounding, and can be used for navigating narrow channels or sea areas with extremely uneven seabeds. The present invention relates to an acoustic sounding device used for etc.

(Conventional technology) When measuring water depth using an acoustic sounding device, short pulses of sound waves are sent out from a transducer equipped at the bottom of the ship with a transmitting and receiving beam directed directly below. Sound waves are received by the above-mentioned transducer, and the water depth is calculated from the time required for the round trip and the speed of the sound waves in the water.

This method can only measure directly below the ship equipped with an acoustic sounding device, so it is necessary to know the water depth in front of the ship and to the left and right when navigating in narrow channels or areas with extremely uneven seabeds. In some cases, multiple transducers may be installed to conduct depth soundings. In this case as well, only the sounding values in the direction of the transmitting and receiving beams of each transducer can be used.

Also, when a submersible is operating in the sea and its support ships on the sea near it do not take advantage of the submersible's alert,
When a companion echo sounding device installed on a support vessel is fully operated, the sound waves emitted from it may interfere with the acoustic equipment installed on the submersible. This interference is most severe when a submersible is operating in or near the transmitting and receiving beams of the acoustic sounding device. In this case, it is necessary to temporarily suspend the operation of the acoustic sounding equipment or to temporarily suspend the use of the acoustic equipment that is subject to interference.

(Problems to be Solved and Eliminated by the Invention) The problems of the prior art that the present invention aims to solve include the above-mentioned problems in the front and left and right sides of the ship, such as when navigating in narrow channels or sea areas with severe unevenness on the seabed. When it is necessary to know the water depth situation, it is necessary to add an additional transmitter and receiver, and even with this method, it is still not possible to use sufficient depth measurements. In order to remove the interference caused by the echo sounding device to the sound equipment on board the submersible when a support vessel is on the lookout for the submersible, it is necessary to stop using the echo sounding equipment or the audio equipment on board the submersible. The point is that it does not.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an acoustic sounding device which solves the above-mentioned drawbacks.

(Means for solving the problem) In an acoustic sounding device, a transmitting/receiving beam control means is provided, which sets a transmitting/receiving beam in advance for each sounding and controls it in a friendly direction, and a transmitting/receiving beam control means that controls the transmitting/receiving beam in advance for each sounding. and conversion calculation means for converting into.

(Example) Next, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to drawings showing examples. Fig. 1 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment of the invention, Fig. 2 is a block diagram showing a second embodiment of the invention, and Fig. 3 is a perspective view showing a detailed explanation of the invention. .

Outline of the present invention C. When a ship passes through a narrow channel or an extremely uneven place on the seabed, or when operating in a sea area where there is a lot of sound interference with other ships' sound equipment, When performing depth sounding in the surrounding area, measure the diagonal distance to the seabed diagonally to the side of the transmitter/receiver beam according to a preset program, and measure the horizontal distance from the inclination angle of the transmitter/receiver beam to the reflective surface of the seabed. It was designed to calculate the distance and the depth of the reflective surface on the ocean floor and display it according to a program. Among these, especially for those used on flat seabeds, it is also possible to indicate that the water depth of the reflective surface on the seabed is the water depth directly below the own ship. The first embodiment employs a method of mechanically controlling the inclination angle of the transmitting/receiving beam, and the second embodiment employs a method of controlling the inclination angle of the transmitting/receiving beam completely magnetically. be.

First, with reference to FIG. 3, the relationship between the transmitted and received wave beams and the calculation for calculating the water depth will be explained. A wave transmitting/receiving beam 73 is transmitted from a wave transmitting/receiving unit mounted on a ship 71 in the direction of an azimuth angle b and an inclination angle a.
is formed, and the slope distance l to the reflecting surface 73 on the ocean floor is determined.

Therefore, the water depth D, the horizontal distance H, the forward distance F, and the lateral distance W of the reflecting surface 78 on the seabed based on the ship 71 and its traveling direction 79t are determined. - In advance, create a program that specifies the azimuth angle and inclination angle a for each depth measurement for various usage conditions, operate the acoustic sounding device with the program selected according to the usage conditions, collect water depth information, and put it into operation. You can display or record the necessary data.

A first embodiment of the invention will now be described.

The first embodiment of the Vc shown in FIG. 1 includes a transmitting/receiving beam control section 1, a conversion calculation section 2, a transmitting/receiving section 41, a transmitting/receiving switching section 42, a receiving section 43, a display section 44, and a transmitting section 45. ing.

When the start of transmission is pressed on the display section 44, which has a control function for the entire device, a short pulse-shaped transmission signal is output from the transmitting section 45 to the transmitting/receiving section 41 via the transmitting/receiving switching section 42t. . The transmitted signal is converted into a sound wave by the wave transmitting/receiving section 41 and emitted into the sea, reflected by the seabed 61, and sent back to the wave transmitting/receiving section 41.
is converted into a received signal and passed through the transmission/reception switching section 42 to the receiving section 4.
3 and output to the calculation section 21 constituting the conversion calculation section 2t''.The calculation section 21 performs a predetermined calculation and displays the result on the display section 44.

The wave transmitting/receiving beam control section 1 is composed of a control section 11 and a slope section 1, and is installed on a ship in a state where it is fixed to the wave transmitting/receiving section 41 of the slope section 12U. Further, the wave transmitting/receiving section 41 is fixed in one direction so as to form nine transmitting/receiving beams. Therefore, since the inclination of the inclined portion 12 is the inclination of the transmitted and received beam up to that point t, the inclination angle a and the azimuth angle b are set in advance.
- If one of several programs prescribed for each sounding is specified to the control unit 11 through the display unit 44, the sounding is continued.

Next, a second embodiment of the present invention will be described.

Referring to FIG. 2, in the second embodiment, a conversion calculating section 2, a transmitting/receiving beam control section 3, a transmitting/receiving section 51, a transmitting/receiving switching section 52, a receiving section 53, a display section 54, and a transmitting/receiving section 55 are included. We are prepared.

The wave transmitting/receiving section 51 divides the transmitting/receiving wave surface of the sound wave into a plurality of parts, each of which is provided with a vibrating element, and when the plurality of vibrating elements are all driven by transmission signals of the same phase, the wave front of the emitted sound wave becomes the transmitting/receiving wave surface. The transmission beam is formed in this direction. If the transmitting beam needs to be formed in the t direction with an inclination to the normal to the transmitting/receiving surface, the transmitting signal when driving multiple vibrating elements to make the wavefront of the emitted sound wave be in this direction. It is necessary to control the phase km of each element. In this second embodiment, each of the plurality of vibrating elements is provided with a phasing section that controls the amount of phase shift or the direction of the delayed transmission beam. In the case of wave reception, the same thing as in the case of wave transmission is done except that the direction of the signal is reversed. w. Among the lines showing the signal flow in the block diagram of FIG. 2, the part from the wave transmitting/receiving section 51 to the phasing sections 32 and 33 is drawn in thick lines to indicate that there are multiple signals.

Similar to the first embodiment, when a transmission instruction is given by the display unit 54 which has a control function for the entire device, the phasing unit 32 generates a short The pulsed transmission signal is amplified by the transmitting section 55 and output to the transmitting/receiving section 51 via the transmitting/receiving switching section 52t. Wave transmitting/receiving section 5
In 1, the transmitted signal is converted into a sound wave and emitted into the sea, reflected off the seabed 61 and returned to the wave transmitting/receiving section 51 again, converted to a received signal, passing through the transmitting/receiving switching section 52, and amplified by the receiving section 53. In the phasing section 33, only the signal returned from the wave transmission direction is extracted and outputted to the arithmetic section 21 constituting the conversion arithmetic section 2. The calculation unit 21 performs predetermined calculations and displays the results on the display unit 44.

The transmitting/receiving beam control section 3 includes a control section 31 and phasing sections 32 and 33.
The inclination angle a and the azimuth angle bt are defined in advance for each sounding, and if one of nine programs is specified to the control unit 31 through the entire display unit 54t, the vibration element of the wave transmitting/receiving unit 51 Since the required amount of phase shift or delay is obtained in each of the phasing units 32 and 34, sounding continues.

Next, in accordance with the purpose of the present invention, a program or calculation for defining the azimuth angle and the inclination angle a for each sounding will be described with reference to FIGS. 4 and 5.

When a ship passes through a narrow channel or an extremely uneven area on the seabed, the angle of inclination a(
In this case, it is assumed that the azimuth angle t-90 @ is set and the sounding is performed directly to the side) to display the trend of the cross-sectional profile of the seabed 75, or the azimuth angle t-0 @ is set and the full sounding is carried out in the forward direction. It is possible to navigate while checking the display of the cross-sectional profile of the seabed 75.

As an example of when there is severe sound wave interference with other ships' sound/equipment, if the depth sounding of the engineering support vessel 76 as shown in Figure 5 interferes with the observation of the submersible vessel 77, the transmitted and received wave beam 72
Instead, the transmitting/receiving beam 73 performs depth sounding while circling around the submersible 77, and confirms the value and the value obtained by calculating the estimated depth measurement value of the transmitting/receiving beam 72 from that value. At the same time, the support ship 76 can be on guard for the submarine 77.

In addition, in the explanations given so far, the effects of sound ray refraction due to changes in water temperature in the sea and the effects of ship motion are not explained.
It is necessary to consider this if the required accuracy cannot be obtained.

As explained above, in the present invention, it is possible to carry out depth sounding by arbitrarily setting the range of the azimuth and inclination angle of the transmitted and received beam for each sounding as necessary.

(Effects of the Invention) As explained in detail above, the acoustic sounding device of the present invention has the following features:
It is now possible to control the azimuth and inclination of the transmitted and received beams for each sounding, making navigation easier in narrow channels and areas with extremely uneven seabeds, and eliminating or reducing interference to other ships' acoustic equipment. This has the effect of realizing the sounding function with almost no loss.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a first embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
The figure is a block diagram showing a second embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 3 is a perspective view showing a detailed explanation of the invention, FIG. 4 is a front view showing an explanation of calculation when passing through a narrow channel, Does the diagram explain acoustic interference? The side view shown. 1.3...Transmission/reception beam control section, 2...
・Conversion calculation section, 11.31... Control section, 12.
... Slope section, 21 ... Calculation section, 32.3
3...Phasing section, 41.51...Transmission/reception section, 42.52...Transmission/reception switching section, 43.53.
...Receiving section, 44, 54...-Display section, 4
5.55... Transmission section. D: Water Depth 71: Ship N: Water Moisture Leech 72.73: Transmission and Receipt Bi, lz: Inclination Angle 7 Right every 15, Hakimino: Double Pressure Acid θ: F Approximate Angle 72, '73: Transmission and Receipt Angle Mu Z6: 5 insults (76: Support ship

Claims (1)

[Claims] An acoustic sounding device comprising: a transmitting/receiving beam control means for controlling a transmitting/receiving beam in a preset direction for each sounding, and a conversion calculation means for converting the distance to the seabed obtained for each sounding into water depth. An acoustic sounding device characterized by: