Remote Sonar Sensing of At-Sea Oil Layer Thicknesses

Author

Sternberger, Wayne I. ; Woodward, William E. ; Heinmiller, Paul A.

fYear

1981

fDate

16-18 Sept. 1981

Firstpage

473

Lastpage

475

Abstract

A research and development effort was undertaken to define and implement appropriate sonar hardware and signal processing techniques in order to measure oil layer thicknesses in the dynamic environment of an oil spill. The resultant Sonar Oil Thickness Sensor (SOTS) is an integrated inverted echo sounder and microprocessor. Control and processing facilities of the microprocessor are used to compensate for the response of the acoustic signal to waves, nonhomogeneous oil layers, emulsification, and complete data dropouts. This paper presents a statement of purpose, design goals, theory and implementation of the sensing instrument, and characteristics of the system performance. Reference is also made to the various applications of this instrument, such as oil tanker cargo monitoring, hazardous chemical monitoring, and nonintrusive capillary wave measurement.

Keywords

marine pollution; oceanographic equipment; oceanographic techniques; oil pollution; remote sensing; sonar; water pollution measurement; SOTS; acoustic signal; at sea oil layer thickness; complete data dropouts; emulsification; hazardous chemical monitoring; inverted echo sounder; microprocessor; nonhomogeneous oil layers; nonintrusive capillary wave measurement; oil layer thickness measurement; oil spill; oil tanker cargo monitoring; remote sonar sensing; sonar hardware; sonar oil thickness sensor; sonar signal processing techniques; Acoustic measurements; Acoustic signal processing; Hardware; Instruments; Microprocessors; Monitoring; Petroleum; Research and development; Sonar measurements; Thickness measurement;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

OCEANS 81

Conference_Location

Boston, MA

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/OCEANS.1981.1151676

Filename

1151676