ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Remote Sens.
Sec. Acoustic Remote Sensing
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frsen.2025.1574996
This article is part of the Research TopicMultibeam Echosounder Backscatter: Advances and ApplicationsView all 10 articles
Multispectral Backscatter-Based Characterization of Seafloor Sediments Using Calibrated Multibeam and Tilted Single-Beam Echosounders
Provisionally accepted
- 1Centre de Bretagne, Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer, Plouzane, France
- 2Independent Researcher, plouzané, France
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This study presents a detailed analysis of Angular Response Curves (ARC) extracted from a multi-spectral seabed backscatter dataset utilizing both calibrated single-beam (SBES) and multibeam echosounders (MBES). Five calibrated SBES transducers were tilted from -9°to 70°5 to measure ARC at different discrete frequencies ranges from 35 kHz to 440 kHz (three to four frequencies per transducer). Additionally, three frequencies -200 kHz, 300 kHz and 400 kHzwere used with the MBES. Experimental data were collected in the Bay of Concarneau, located on the French Northwest coast, across seven different ground-truthed sediment types. The study aims to investigate the effects of frequency and pulse length on ARC shape and intensity. Furthermore, a novel method for estimating seabed angular backscatter from standard SBES volume backscatter strength (Sv) is used. A key aspect of this research is the intercalibration of the multibeam and singlebeam systems to ensure consistency and reliability in MBES backscatter measurements. These findings contribute to a better understanding of acoustic wave interactions with sediment properties across different wavelengths and pulse durations, ultimately improving seabed characterization accuracy.
Keywords: Multibeam, multispectral, Calibration, Single-beam, Angular response curves, Backscatter
Received: 11 Feb 2025; Accepted: 24 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Fezzani, Berger, LE BOUFFANT and Lurton. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ridha Fezzani, Centre de Bretagne, Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer, Plouzane, France
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