Sonar image processing system is an important intelligent system of Autonomous Un-derwater Vehicle.Based on TMS320C30 high speed DSP,it is used to realize sonar imagecompression and underwater object detections including obstacle recognition in real time.Inthis paper,the software and hardware designs of this system are introduced and the experi-mental results are given. Sonar image processing system is an important intelligent system of Autonomous Un-derwater Vehicle. Based on TMS320C30 high speed DSP, it is used to realize sonar image compression and underwater object detections including obstacle recognition in real time. Inis paper, the software and hardware designs of this system are introduced and the experi-mental results are given.