The idea of using sound to determine the depth of a lake or ocean was first proposed in the early nineteenth

century. Interest in this technique, called underwater ranging, was renewed in 1912 when the luxury sailing vessel Titanic collided with an iceberg and sank. Two years later, during World War I (191418), a single German submarine sank three British cruisers carrying more than 1,200 men. In response, the British government funded a massive effort to create an underwater detection system. The entire operation was conducted in complete secrecy, but the first working model was not ready until after the war ended. The project operated under the code name "asdic" (which stood for Allied Submarine Detection Investigating Committee). The device kept that name until the late 1950s, when the American term "sonar" was adopted w How it works The principle behind sonar is simple: a pulse of ultrasonic waves is sent into the water where it bounces off a target and comes back to the source (ultrasonic waves are pitched too high for humans to detect). The distance and location can be calculated by measuring the time it takes for the sound to return. By knowing the speed of sound in water, the distance is computed by multiplying the speed by one-half of the time traveled (for a one-way trip). This is active sonar ranging (echolocation). Words to Know Active Sonar : Mode of echo location by sending a signal and detecting the returning echo. Passive sonar: Sensitive listening-only mode to detect the presence of objects making noise. Ultrasound: Acoustic vibrations with frequencies higher than the human threshold of hearing.

Most moving objects underwater make some kind of noise. Marine life, cavitation (small collapsing air pockets caused by propellers), hull popping of submarines changing depth, and engine vibration are all forms of underwater noise. In passive sonar ranging, no pulse signal is sent. Instead, the searcher listens for the characteristic sound of another boat or submarine. By doing so, the searcher can identify the target without revealing his own location. This method is most often used during wartime.

However, since a submarine is usually completely submerged, it must use active sonar at times, generally to navigate past obstacles. In doing so, the submarine risks alerting others of its presence. In such cases, the use of sonar has become a sophisticated military tactical exercise. Sonar devices have become standard equipment for most commercial and many recreational ships. Fishing boats use active sonar to locate schools of fish. Other applications of sonar include searching for shipwrecks, probing harbors where visibility is poor, mapping the ocean floor, and helping submerged vessels navigate under the Arctic Ocean ice sheets.

Sonar is a system that uses transmitted and reflected underwater sound waves to detect and locate submerged objects or measure the distances underwater. It has been used for submarine and mine detection, depth detection, commercial fishing, diving safety and communication at sea. The Sonar device will send out a subsurface sound wave and then listens for returning echoes, the sound data is relayed to the human operators by a loudspeaker or by being displayed on a monitor. As early as 1822, Daniel Colloden used an underwater bell to calculate the speed of sound underwater in Lake Geneva, Switzerland. This early research led to the invention of dedicated sonar devices by other inventors. Lewis Nixon Lewis Nixon invented the very first Sonar type listening device in 1906, as a way of detecting icebergs. Interest in Sonar was increased during World War I when there was a need to be able to detect submarines. Paul Langvin In 1915, Paul Langvin invented the first sonar type device for detecting submarines called an "echo location to detect submarines" using the piezoelectric properties of the quartz. He was too late to help very much with the war effort, however, Langvin's work heavily influenced future sonar designs. The first Sonar devices were passive listening devices - no signals were sent out. By 1918, both Britain and the U.S had built active systems, in active Sonar signals are both sent out and then received back. Acoustic communication systems are Sonar devices where there is both a sound wave projector and receiver on both sides of the signal path. The invention of the acoustic transducer and efficient acoustic projectors made more advanced forms of Sonar possible. Sonar - SOund, NAvigation and Ranging

The word Sonar is an American term first used in World War II, it is an acronym for SOund, NAvigation and Ranging. The British also call Sonar, ASDICS, which stands for AntiSubmarine Detection Investigation Committee. Later developments of Sonar included the echo sounder, or depth detector, rapid-scanning Sonar, side-scan Sonar, and WPESS (withinpulseectronic-sector-scanning) Sonar. There are two major kinds of sonar, active and passive. Active sonar creates a pulse of sound, often called a "ping", and then listens for reflections of the pulse. The pulse may be at constant frequency or a chirp of changing frequency. If a chirp, the receiver correlates the frequency of the reflections to the known chirp. The resultant processing gain allows the receiver to derive the same information as if a much shorter pulse of the same total power were emitted. In general, long-distance active sonars use lower frequencies. The lowest have a bass "BAH-WONG" sound. To measure the distance to an object, one measures the time from emission of a pulse to reception. Passive sonars listen without transmitting. They are usually military (although a few are scientific). Passive sonar systems usually have large sonic databases. A computer system frequently uses these databases to identify classes of ships, actions (i.e. the speed of a ship, or the type of weapon released), and even particular ships.

1.1 The sonar system An active sonar system is an apparatus used for obtaining information about underwater objects and events by transmitting sound waves and observing the return echoes1 The sound waves produced by sonar systems used for fish detection and biomass estimation are of the same nature as those produced by musical instruments, moving vehicles, machinery, human speech organs, etc. However, the human ear has a restricted range of perception of sound limited approximately to frequencies between 50 and 12000 Hertz (cycles per second, abbreviated Hz). Sonar systems used in fisheries utilize ultra sounds, i.e., the sounds of frequency 12000-500000 Hz, (i.e., 12500 kHz) which are not detectable by the human ear.
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An apparatus used only for receiving the sounds generated by underwater objects is called a passive sonar system, which can be utilized in marine biology for detecting sounds generated by fish and other aquatic animals. The users of the sonar system, i.e., sailors, fishermen, and marine researchers have adopted the following terms: - a sonar system that transmits vertically is called an echo-sounder (Fig. 1a). - a sonar system that transmits horizontally is called a sonar (Fig. 1b).

Figure 1 Detection and location of fish by (a) echosounder (b) sonar

The functioning of both kinds of appartus is the same. Therefore when discussing the basic theory of acoustics and the functioning of acoustic equipment in general we will use the term sonar system, and when discussing the practical use of a particular kind of equipment we will use one of the customary names, i.e., echo-sounder or sonar.