Software para el reconocimiento de objetos sumergidos fabricados por el hombre basado en el procesado de imagen procedente de un sonar de barrido lateral de simple haz

Abstract

Digital processing of sidescan sonar images significantly enhances the performance in recognition of seafloor features and underwater artifacts. These images are usually poor in its resolution compared with optical captured frames. There are different commercial solutions that can solve this problem, like using a high resolution multibeam sidescan sonar, or using a bathymetric sonar device. Present work shows an economical solution to avoid this kind of problem employing digital image processing techniques under MATLAB environment. The application presented here has been developed under user friendly philosophy, i.e., it is easy to manipulate and it can be operated for users at any level. Two types of sonar surveys: seafloor mapping and submerged target searches (buried or not), require different processing methods for data analysis that are implemented in the software. This program is an updated version of the previous one [1-4]. An important improvement is the semi-automatic recognition of man-made submerged objects.