Patent ID: 7652952

Claim:
A sonar imaging system, comprising: a transducer assembly mounted to a boat, the transducer assembly including: a housing; and first and second side scan acoustic elements positioned within the housing to transmit first and second side scan sonar beams comprising side scan sonar pulses to first and second sides of the boat, respectively, and to receive side scan sonar returns, each side scan acoustic element having a rectangular shape with a total length of up to about seven inches and a total width of up to about 0.5 inches to produce side scan sonar beams having a narrow width in the direction of the length of said side scan acoustic elements and a wide width in a plane perpendicular to the direction of the length, and each side scan acoustic element being mounted within the housing and oriented at a depression angle of between about 20 degrees and about 40 degrees; and an electronic control head operatively coupled to the transducer assembly to control the side scan acoustic elements, the electronic control head including a user interface having a liquid crystal display (LCD) for displaying side scan sonar images based upon the first and second side scan sonar returns received by one or both of the side scan acoustic elements.