At 300-meter range, a traditional sonar can ping about 2.5 times per second. At 5 knots, a sonar is traveling 2.5 meters per second, so would travel about 1 meter between pings. This means that objects smaller than 1 meter are likely to be missed in the near range, and that items smaller than 5 meters cannot be distinguished at far range.

To overcome this, synthetic aperture sonar systems attempt to create a "synthetic" array, by summing returns from multiple pings, to produce output imagery with constant along-track resolution. To do this, they need precision micro-navigation data to properly align overlapping "phase centers".

OIC supports the feeding of SAS processors the raw, hi-bandwidth data and precision time-stamped navigation/attitude data, and the control/display/processing of SAS output.

To see a list of SAS devices currently supported by OIC, click here.