Patent ID: 6335905
Filing Date: 2002-01-01
Classification: G01S

Abstract:
A sonar depth sounder device comprising:a display; a transmitter for generating a sonar signal toward the bottom surface of a body of water; a receiver; a processor connected to said transmitter and said receiver, wherein said transmitter transmits a sonar signal into said body of water, and wherein said receiver receives a corresponding echo sonar signal, wherein said echo sonar signal is sampled, and wherein a continuous time average is applied to at least a portion of the data corresponding to said samples, thereby creating a time varying detection threshold; wherein said sonar depth sounder device further comprises a memory, and wherein data indicative of data samples received by said receiver or stored in said memory, and wherein data indicative of said data samples after said continuous time average technique has been applied to said originally received data is stored in memory; wherein each data sample of said averaged data samples is compared with a corresponding data sample of said originally received set of data, and wherein, when a numeric value of an originally received data sample is greater than a data value associated with its corresponding averaged data sample, information indicative of said original data sample is displayed on said display; wherein when a numeric value associated with a data sample of said originally received data is less than a corresponding data value of said averaged data, said originally received data sample is rejected, and information indicative thereof is not displayed on said display; and wherein said processor, prior to making said comparison, applies lower and upper limits to said detection threshold.