Physical Sciences

A system for on-line (i.e. real-time) seafloor classification uses multi-beam acoustic device mounted beneath a ship's hull attached to an r.m.s. estimator module through a beam former module.The multi-beam backscatter r.m.s. data comprises a back. The novel system for seafloor classification uses artificial neural network (ANN) hybrid layout with the use of unprocessed multi-beam backscatter data. Its a real-time seafloor roughness classifier using backscatter data after training the self-organized mapping (SOM) network and learning vector quantization (LVQ) network wherein, the system has the unique capability for the combined use of unsupervised SOM followed by supervised LVQ to achieve a highly improved performance in the roughness classification.