Study of the sea noise has been a subject of interest for many years. The first works in this scope were published at the turn of the twentieth century by Knudsen (Knudsen et al., 1948) and G. Wenz (Wenz, 1962). Disturbances called "shipping noise" are one of the important components of the sea noise.In this work the results of an experimental research of underwater noise produced by a small ship of a classic propulsion are presented. A linear receiving antenna composed of two orthogonal components was used in the investigation. Identification of the main sources of acoustic waves related with the ship was achieved. In addition, the intensity of the wave was measured. The research was performed in conditions of the shallow sea.

The paper contains results of a in situ research main task of which was to detect objects buried, partially or completely, in the sea bottom. Object detecting technologies employing acoustic wave sources based on nonlinear interaction of elastic waves require application of parametric sound sources. Detection of objects buried in the sea bottom with the use of classic hydroacoustic devices such as the sidescan sonar or multibeam echosounder proves ineffective. Wave frequencies used in such devices are generally larger than tens of kHz. This results in the fact that almost the whole acoustic energy is reflected from the bottom. On the other hand, parametric echosounders radiate waves with low frequency and narrow beam patterns which ensure high spatial resolution and allows to penetrate the sea bottom to depths of the order of tens of meters. This allows to detect objects that can be interesting, among other things, from archaeological or military point of view.

The main goal of this paper is to present results of the experimental investigation of the seabed by means of parametric echosounder in the form of chosen images. The phenomena of nonlinear interaction between two parallel beams of high intensity gives as a results very narrow beam of low frequency wave, that enables to penetrate the sea bottom. The first step of our investigations was calibration of all the elements of the measuring system. In the second step the marine trials were carried out. For this purpose the mobile measuring set up was installed on the board of sailing boat. The details about the measuring devices can be found below. The main goal of these investigations was to determine the structure of the seabed for different places of the Gulf of Gdańsk. The special features of parametric generation of sound beam allow to penetrate the bottom for more then several meters. At the end of the paper, a set of images that illustrated the results of investigations has been presented.

The main goal of this paper is to describe the results of sounding the Gdansk Bay sea bed by using a SES-2000 Standard parametric sub-bottom profiler. Quality of data obtained during trials depends inter alia on a proper location of transducer array to reduce influence of pitch, roll and heave motions as well as ship self noise (resulting from bubbles due to propeller and flow around hull, vibration generated by main engine and auxiliary devices). Furthermore, calibration of complementary units such as GPS, heading sensor, MRU-Z motion sensor and navigation devices make sea-bed investigating system capable of working with its whole capability. Results of so prepared surveys have been presented and discussed. They contain also an elaborated map of Gdansk Bay with preliminarily classified sea-bed materials and description of most interesting areas.

Propagation of acoustic waves in the sea, in particular in shallow sea, depends on several factors. The basic of them are source power and frequency of acoustic waves, spatial distribution inhomogeneous medium in which acoustic wave propagates, and distributions of speed of sound and density of seawater. The coastal conditions, which limit water medium from above (free surface of the sea) and from bottom (the seabed), are no less important. In this paper we will consider the examination of the layer structure of the seabed by the means of the acoustic methods. By the notion of acoustic methods we mean use of phenomena in the field of nonlinear hydroacoustics. Based on this, the parametric sonar was constructed and was used to the seabed sounding. This parametric sonar is commonly called sub-bottom profiler. The selected results of extensive experimental research, that have been performed in waters of the Gulf of Gdańsk in the years 2008-2010, will be presented in this work.