Onboard acoustic remote sensing system for air-sea interaction studies

The onboard modular acoustic remote-sensing system, the Marine Atmosphere Sound Detector (MASD), was developed using sound detection and ranging (SODAR) for air-sea interaction. The MASD system was installed and tested on the CNR research vessel Urania. The MASD system structure, installed on the Urania, is composed of a central PC with an Austin, Texas-based National Instruments (NI) MIO 6713 signals generation board and a data acquisition board. The navigation PC collects all the navigational data transmitted by the other devices and, by means of Communication Technology's, Cesena, Italy, NavPRO 5.5 software, transmits them to the central PC. The MASD system was installed and tested during an oceanographic cruise, Bansic '06, carried out in the summer of 2006 on board the research vessel Urania, with the system's antenna oriented vertically with respect to the prow of the ship.