ISACS: Integrated System for Analysis and Characterisation of the Seafloor

ISACS is a 36-month profect sponsored by the European Community under the MAST 3 program (Contract: MAS3-CT95-0046). The objective of ISACS is to prove the feasibility of the analysis and characterization of the seafloor by the exploitation and by a suitable integration of data gathered from commercially available sonar equipment. The profect is divided into five different tasks with three objectives: gathering of acoustic data with multibeam echosounders, sidescan sonars and parametric sonar, development of algorithms suitable for classification and characterization of the seafloor and finally verification of the algorithms through use of ground truth and in-situ data. The profect is now entering the final stage. This paper presents the profect and the developed products along with some preliminary results from the different sea trials.