Patent ID: 8085618
Filing Date: 2011-12-27
Classification: G01S,G01V

Abstract:
1. A sonar system comprising: a physical antenna consisting of a plurality of receivers; a calculation unit; said physical antenna being deformable, said physical antenna being flexible, and including acoustic receivers having variable positions relative to each other, said system being equipped with positioning means making it possible to determine, in real time, the instantaneous position of each of the receivers, and said calculation unit making it possible to reconstruct a sonar image by taking account of instantaneous positions of each receiver, wherein the deformable flexible antenna is connected to the rear of a towed head, said head being provided with an inertial unit adapted to determine the instantaneous position and orientation of said head and the system comprises inside the physical antenna at least one transmitter, the deformable flexible antenna being equipped with sensors making it possible to determine a relative instantaneous position of the transmitter and of each transducer with respect to the head and in that said calculation unit makes it possible to form a synthetic antenna by considering a succession of K operation recurrences of the sonar system.