A method for the removal of ray refraction effects in multibeam echo sounder systems

To a multibeam echo sounder system (MBES), under water sound refraction plays an important role in depth measure-ment accuracy, and errors in sound velocity profile lead to inaccuracies in the measured depth (especially for outer beams). A method is developed to estimate the sound velocity profile based on the depth measured by vertical beam. Using this depth and other pa-rameters, such as t (sound pulse propagation time), 0 (beam inclination angle), etc. We can estimate a simple sound velocity profile with which the depth error has been reduced. This method has been tested with a real dataset acquired in the East China Sea.