Patent ID: 7933167

Claim:
Synthetic antenna sonar system, comprising: a sonar ( 110 ) provided with emission means and reception means, said reception means comprising a composite physical antenna ( 120 ) having N transducers ( 121 ), said sonar being located on a mobile carrier; an inertial unit ( 160 ) arranged on said carrier and suitable for measuring instantaneous position and orientation informations of said carrier; and a clock ( 150 ), characterized in that said clock is a common clock supplying a temporal signal enabling the synchronization of both the inertial unit and the sonar, and in that the sonar system also comprises: means for determining the instantaneous speed of said carrier ( 350 ), wherein the determined speed feeds the inertial unit to correct the drift thereof; and micronavigation means ( 310 ) enabling an image of the seafloor to be obtained through formation of the synthetic antenna channels from K sonar operation recurrences, considering that the physical antenna movement during the carrier displacement is fully known from the informations measured by said inertial unit.