The word ‘SONAR’ stands for ‘Sound Navigation And Ranging’.
• SONAR is a device which is used to find distance, direction and speed of underwater objects.
• SONAR consists of a transmitter and a receptor or detector and installed at the bottom of a ship.
• The transmitter produces and transmits ultrasonic waves.
• These waves travel through water and after striking the objects on the bottom of sea, are reflected back and received by detector.
• These reflected waves are converted into electric signals by detector.
• The sonar device measures the time taken by ultrasound waves to travel from ship to bottom of sea and back to ship.
The sonar is used to find the depth of sea, to locate underwater hills, valleys, submarines, icebergs and sunken ships etc.
