Simulation, manufacturing, and evaluation of a sonar for a miniaturized submersible explorer

Single-beam side-scan sonar elements, to be fitted on a miniaturized submersible, are here simulated, manufactured, and evaluated. Finite element analysis simulations are compared with measurements, and an overall observation is that the agreement between simulations and measurements deviates from the measured values of 1.5 to 2 degrees, for the narrow lobe angle, by less than 10% for most models. An overall finding is that the lobe width along the track direction can be accurately simulated and, hence, the resolution of the sonars can be predicted. This paper presents, to the authors' knowledge, the world's smallest side-scan sonars.