The Chinese government will send a top-of-the-line sonar-equipped ship to aid the Australian government in search of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss on Friday announced the addition of China's Dong Hai Jiu 101 to Australia's search operation in the Southern Indian Ocean. 

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"The ship has recently been refitted and will be equipped with the ProSAS-60, a 6000-meter depth-rated synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) towed system," Truss said. 

Experts say that the SAS is notches higher than the standard 75 kHz side-scan sonars that the Australian government was using to search the 120,000 square-kilometer search area. 

In comparison, an image seen by a standard acoustic sonar will be more pixelated as the distance between the sonar and the object increases, but with the SAS, the image remains clear despite the long distance. 

Truss said that Chinese Premier Li Keqiang offered the ship to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in November last year. The Dong Hai Jiu 101 is currently docked at Singapore and will leave for Australia on Sunday. 

"It will commence operations in the search area towards the end of February," Truss said. 

"The ProSAS-60 will be operated by Phoenix International Holdings and Hydrospheric Solutions. Both companies have experience in the search for MH370 having previously operated on the search vessel GO Phoenix." 

Dong Hai Jiu 101 is the fourth vessel that will join the operation alongside Fugro Discovery, Fugro Equator, and Havila Harmony. 

According to Fugro Survey, operator of the three other vessels, they prefer using a reliable sonar system. Company director Paul Kennedy said that SAS is still a developing technology and its reliability is not guaranteed 100 percent. 

Kennedy said that because they are searching a very remote area, the company chose to use established technology "with ready supplies of spare parts." 

Incidentally, Fugro Discovery lost its sonar unit and a 4.5-kilometer cable last week when the equipment passed an underwater volcano. It is now headed to the Fremantle port for new supplies. 

More than 85,000 square kilometers have been covered since 2014 in search of the remains of flight MH370 that mysteriously vanished. Aboard the plane were 239 people, 154 of them are Chinese. 

Tagssearch for flight MH370, Australia China relations, Australia Deputy Prime Minister, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang