Target strength

Sonar image of the wreck of USS O-9.

The target strength or acoustic size is a measure of the area of a sonar target. This is usually quantified as a number of decibels. For fish such as salmon, the target size varies with the length of the fish and a 5 cm fish could have a target strength of about -50 dB.^[1]

Target strength (TS) is equal to 10 log₁₀(σ_bs/(1 m²)) dB, where σ_bs is the differential backscattering cross section. Backscattering cross section is 4πσ_bs.

References[]

^ J.E. Ehrenberg (1989), "A review of target estimation techniques", Underwater Acoustic Data Processing, Springer, ISBN 9780792301271

Further reading[]

"Introduction to the use of sonar systems for estimating fish biomass, FAO Fisheries Technical Paper No. 191, Revision 1, FAO 1982"
Fisheries Acoustics Simmonds, E John and MacLennan, David N (2005) Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-0-632-05994-2
C. S. Clay & H. Medwin, Acoustical Oceanography (Wiley, New York, 1977)

target strength formula:

e.g. for a sphere with radius $r$ :

$TS=10\log(r^{2}/4)$

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[1] J.E. Ehrenberg (1989), "A review of target estimation techniques", Underwater Acoustic Data Processing, Springer, ISBN 9780792301271

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