A Versatile Multi-Channel Data Acquisition System for Seismic and Acoustic Applications

Versatility and reliability were key factors in the the design of a minicomputer based digital data acquisition system. Used both at sea and on the polar ice with excellent results, it has been adapted to tasks ranging from at-sea continuous seismic profiling to low level acoustic transmission experiments. Of particular interest is a floating point amplifier utilizing a unique gain switching method developed to permit simultaneous sampling of multiple channels up to a 1 kHz signal bandwidth. Other features include continuous or intermittent recording in a time demultiplexed format, floating point normalization hardware, sampling times traceable to absolute time, and real-time video display of selected data channels. The system can be used for analysis and processing when not in the acquisition mode.