Abstract
Sonar is an acronym standing for “Sound, Navigation and Ranging”. Sonar is an underwater detection device based on the reflection of acoustic wave in the sea environment. This system is close from the Radar system using the reflection of the radio pulses in the air. Sonars are used for the navigation and the detection of objects underwater such as fish, shipwreck or submarines or simply to identify the depth of the sea.
A sonar device uses the reflection of the acoustic wave on an object to calculate its position and its distance from the ships, thanks to the knowledge of the sound speed in water. The direction of the echo allows determining the position of the target. The acoustic waves are emitted thanks to an apparel places inside or on the ship hulls.
A complete sonar device has several components:
- An acoustic pulse generator placed inside or on the ship hull.
- A transducer to transform acoustic waves in narrow beams
- An acoustic pick up
- A set of amplifiers
- A delay timer
- An indicating display.
Thanks to these different components, a high level sonar is able to differentiate objects among others and to distinguish individual objects from another (definition of the sonar). Nowadays there are two different types of sonars:
- Active sonars: A sound pulse is emitted underwater and allows locating the different targets (submarines, fish, shipwrecks…). This type of sonars is never used in the navy forces as the emitting of the sound pulse may allow an enemy to locate the ships. Nevertheless this type of sonars is mainly used on the civilian market.
- Passive sonars: Passive sonar allows to a ship or a submarine to listen to its environment without emitting any sound pulse allowing the submarine to be perfectly discreet.
Actually sonars are sold on two main markets:
- The military market: Military naval forces are big consumers of sonars, for a simple reason: “search & destroy” enemy submarines. For this reason most of the military vessels are equipped with high definition sonars. Nevertheless, on this market, sonars are Business to business products, and there are no advertisings and promotion for secrecy reasons.
- The civilian markets: this market is extremely large thanks to the wide number of customers, and suppliers. This civilian market can be divided in two smaller markets:
Business to Business: The customers may be Ships builder, fishing companies, Cruise lines, leisure boats builders…
Business to consumers: the customers are leisure boats owners willing to have new sonars, or sport fishers willing to have sonars in order to increase their catches.
In this report, I will focus on the civilian sport fishing sonar market by introducing new sonars for sport fishers. This choice is justified by the fact that on this market, sonars are business to consumers advertised products and by the fact that the market is really important and expanding, justifying the introduction of new products on the market.
