A doppler log is the typical device which can measure the ship's speed over the ground directly, by means of doppler effect of the underwater ultrasonic wave, which involves the error due to the sea bottom inclination, the trim and the incorrect transducer installation etc. The present doppler log adopts a single transducer, faced in the direction of themain beam, and therefore it is unable to correct the beam direction to eliminate the above mentioned error. Moreover, the frequencyis also limitted in a comparatively high range for getting a sharp beam with single transducer, and the speed over the ground can not be detectable at the deep sea, for an instance, over 200 meters. This paper describes a theoretical consideration for the doppler log error and an analysis by a computer on the observed speed data by a full size model ship. The result is verified that the most of doppler log error is caused by the ultrasonic beam angle of transducer. To eliminate the doppler log error due to the incorrect transducer installation and also to sharpen the beam for lower frequency range to expand measurable sea depth, this paper proposes a method of controlling the directivity adopting a linear transducer array and of controlling the directivity by the control of exciting current, and investigates by the computer simulation and make experiment with magnetostrictive ferrite transducer of 28, 50 and 75KHz. The experimental results are shown well coincide with the measured ones, and they are revealed that in case where the transducer interval is greater than 1 wavelength, the effective control of the beam direction is hardly performed with keeping adequate beam width and side lobe level. It is concluded that 6-elements array with inter element space of a half wavelength can make comparatively sharp beam and low side lobe level. The results obtained here will contribute very much to the improvement of the performance of doppler log.

• 신형일
• 정세모