The Underwater Research Laboratory (URL) was
established in 1989 and operates within the School or Engineering Science with
a mandate to teach the attitudes, approaches, methods, and skills associated
with effective and responsible subsea science and engineering.
The Laboratory has 100 square metres of floor
space, 4m by 4m by 2m test tank, a four-channel coherent laboratory sonar
(variable frequency from 10 to 600 kHz), two eight channel coherent field and
lab sonars (40 to 400 kHz), an eight-channel coherent automated beam pattern
measurement system, and facilities for making acoustic transducers (vacuum
chamber, fume hood, oven, machine shop).
The beam pattern measurement system is capable of not only measuring
multiple beampatterns but also is able to measure the phase response between
array elements and to estimate the location of the phase center for each array
element.
We also have access to SFU’s
9.7m research vessel, the CJ Walters.
The URL conducts research in underwater
acoustics, sonar (Multi-angle swath bathymetry (MASB) sonars, surveillance
sonars), bottom imaging, bottom mapping, bottom classification, bottom
reverberation coherency, target detection, sidescan wake
removal, underwater acoustic transducer design, construction and evaluation.
Funding for the URL
comes from research grants that are associated with projects. Present funding
is from NSERC, and past funding organizations
include ISER, Teledyne Benthos, and Marport Canada.
Last
updated: March 5, 2009