A new approach to real-time acoustic oceanographic measurements: Digital hydrophones integrated with oceanographic sensor

A line of highly innovative products is presented, which particularly addresses acoustical oceanographic measurements, and includes digital hydrophones and digital acoustic arrays. Major features are very low self-noise, wide dynamic range, wide bandwidth, possibly very high working depth, simultaneous non-acoustic data integration (possible options: CTD data, sound velocity and depth, orientation, GPS time and position, etc.), portability and ease of use, and high cost effectiveness. The systems being digital, the digitizer is very close to the hydrophones, which prevents from any electromagnetic interference and signal weakening along cable, even at high frequency. The systems are particularly suitable for ambient noise measurements. The wide bandwidth from 4 Hz to 90 kHz is particularly appropriate for marine mammal survey. Orientation and positioning data are fundamental for array applications aimed to noise source localization. The integration of acoustic data with data from a CTD or from a sound velocity profiler is particularly innovative, and is of major interest to who needs to have both noise and oceanographic survey simultaneously and in real time, along the same deployment, with significant time saving and better knowledge of the environment.