A novel simplified and high-precision georeferenced model for multibeam bathymetric data

Xunpeng YAN; Xianhai BU; Mingzhen XIN; Miao FAN; Jianxing ZHANG; Fanlin YANG

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A novel simplified and high-precision georeferenced model for multibeam bathymetric data

Geology | Updated：2026-06-29

- A novel simplified and high-precision georeferenced model for multibeam bathymetric data
- Journal of Oceanology and Limnology Vol. 44, Issue 3, Pages: 978-989(2026)
- Affiliations：
  
  1.College of Geodesy and Geomatics, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266590, China
  2.Key Laboratory of Ocean Geomatics, Ministry of Natural Resources of China, Qingdao 266590, China
  3.School of Marine Science and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
  4.National Marine Data and Information Service, Tianjin 300171, China
  5.Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266000, China
- Author bio：
  
  buxianhai2012@163.com
- Funds：
- DOI：
  CLC：
- Received：27 January 2025，
  
  Published：01 May 2026
- Accepted：
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YAN Xunpeng,BU Xianhai,XIN Mingzhen,et al.A novel simplified and high-precision georeferenced model for multibeam bathymetric data[J].Journal of Oceanology and Limnology,2026,44(03):978-989.
DOI：

YAN Xunpeng,BU Xianhai,XIN Mingzhen,et al.A novel simplified and high-precision georeferenced model for multibeam bathymetric data[J].Journal of Oceanology and Limnology,2026,44(03):978-989. DOI：

摘要

Abstract

Multibeam echosounder system (MBES) is an essential acoustic remote sensing technique for seabed topography surveys. The georeferenced model is crucial for the MBES when calculating the bathymetric soundings’ geolocation and depth. Existing models are complex and time-consuming

failing to meet the demands of large-scale or real-time data processing. To address these issues

we proposed a simplified and high-precision method. First

two regular sectors with the same vertex are assumed to represent the across-track and along-track beam patterns of the multibeam transmitter and receiver

respectively

instead of two cones in the conventional virtual concentric cone array (VCCA) model. Secondly

the beam vector representing the direction of sound ray tracing is derived by calculating the intersection point coordinates between the two sectors. Finally

an efficient progressive equivalent sound speed profile ray tracing progress is used to obtain the final depth of soundings. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method substantially reduces processing time

with reductions of approximately 52% for shallow water data and 84% for deep water data. The root mean square error of depth discrepancies is approximately 0.58% of water depth in overlapping regions of cross-survey lines. Furthermore

the proposed method achieves accuracy comparable to the VCCA algorithm.

关键词

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references

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