Real-time bathymetric artifact flagging for the SeaBeam 2100 system

An algorithm for flagging anomalous multibeam data in real-time is presented. Requirements for the design were the ability to perform effectively in the varying depths and seafloor conditions the SeaBeam 2100 system may encounter without slowing real-time data processing or flagging more than 5% of the good beams in the data. The algorithm consists of three filters: (1) Cross Track Distance, (2) Spatial Scarcity and (3) Depth Anomaly. Upon testing on nine sonar files with different depth ranges and topography, the filter agreed with hand editing 94% on average.