Sponsor
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Office of Naval Research, Littoral Geosciences and Optics with Dr. Reginald Beach as a program manager. The authors would like to thank the captain, mates, and crew of the R/V SALLY RIDE for mooring operations and capable vessel handling as well as Mike Smith who designed the 2021 deep-water survey, Yong-Min Jiang, Laura Brownstead, and Drew Wendeborn for assistance in the reflection measurements, Stan Dosso for helpful comments on the manuscript, and Clay Whittaker for use of his SBP29 transmitter drawing.
Published In
IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-1-2026
Subjects
Remote sensing, Geophysical measurement techniques, Sediments, sonar applications
Abstract
In acoustic remote sensing, the seabed frequency-domain reflection coefficient contains significant geoacoustic information, namely the depth and frequency dependence of sediment sound speed, density, and attenuation. Typical reflection measurements are performed with a towed source and/or receivers to obtain a range of seabed reflected angles. It is shown here that the measurements can be performed using a hull-mounted low-frequency multibeam sonar with an offboard fixed or drifting hydrophone. To obtain the reflection coefficient (as well as scattering strength and other quantities of potential interest), the multibeam sonar radiation pattern must be known. Radiation patterns and absolute levels of the Kongsberg SBP29 multibeam sonar are measured and reflection coefficient measurements are presented in two geologically dissimilar environments, the Eel River shelf, CA and the Santa Barbara Basin, CA. The reflection coefficient frequency and angle dependences are explored via forward modeling to determine regions of the data space that contain information about the geoacoustic properties.
Rights
Copyright (c) 2026 The Authors Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Locate the Document
DOI
10.1109/JOE.2026.3691004
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/45209
Publisher
IEEE
Citation Details
Holland, C. W., Henderson, C. R., Sonnemann, T., Langli, B., & Orange, D. L. (2026). Seabed Wide-Angle Reflection Coefficient and Source Radiation Pattern Measurements From a Low-Frequency Multibeam Sonar. IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering, 51(3), 2298–2313. https://doi.org/10.1109/joe.2026.3691004