Temporal domain processing for a synthetic aperture array

A method for the synthesis of an aperture with improved bearing resolution and signal gain is described. The proposed method temporally synthesizes data from an overlap correlator, which is obtained by aperture domain averaging of phase differences. Previous studies, such as extended towed array measurements (ETAM), had a restriction in that the overlapped hydrophones between successive measurements of a towed array were required to have identical positions in space. In this paper, however, it is shown that the phase correction factors can be estimated without restriction on the positions of the overlapped hydrophones. This implies that the proposed method is able to utilize more snapshots to extend the towed array. Simulation results showed that the proposed method resulted in higher estimation accuracy than ETAM. In addition, the effects of coherency and other systematic errors on the proposed method were examined     

Large aperture digital acoustic array

A digital array of 120 acoustic channels 900 m in length has been constructed to study low-frequency (20-200 Hz) ambient noise in the ocean. The array may be deployed vertically or horizontally from the research platform FLIP and the array elements are localized with a high-frequency acoustic transponder network. The authors describe the instrumentation, telemetry, and navigation systems of the array during a vertical deployment in the northeast Pacific. Preliminary ambient noise spectra are presented for various array depths and local wind speeds. Ambient noise in the frequency band above 100 Hz or below 25 Hz increases with local wind speed. However, in the frequency band 25-100 Hz, ambient noise is independent of wind speed and may be dominated by shipping sources     

Passive acoustic synthetic aperture processing techniques

Various parameters associated with the track of a stable CW source moving with constant velocity are estimated using synthetic aperture and Doppler processing techniques. These include the source frequency before Doppler distortion by its motion, the relative speed between the source and a constant velocity receiver, the range at closest approach to the source track, and the relative bearing to the source. Different processing techniques are suggested for a range of signal stabilities and observation times. Frequency analysis, or Doppler processing, supplements conventional synthetic aperture processing, and for relatively unstable signals a synthetic Doppler method is recommended. This method makes use of a rapid scan of signals from a succession of sensors in a horizontal line array to stimulate a higher speed motion of the array     

Alternate schemes in synthetic aperture sonar processing

Suboptimal processing schemes, the application of which is not widespread in synthetic aperture sonar processing, are described with reference to seafloor imaging. It is shown that their application can result in a significant increase of the azimuth resolution of the sonar system with respect to the resolution due to its physical beamwidth, without imposing unreasonable constraints on the sonar platform trajectory.     

Stable nonlinear methods for sensor array processing;

Most nonlinear high-resolution bearing estimators are unstable in the presence of correlated noise, system phase errors, and multipath arrivals because they inadvertently place too much emphasis on unstable eigenvectors of the cross-sensor correlation matrix. For moderately correlated noise there will be sufficiently many stable eigenvectors to resolve and localize discrete sources. A method is given (the "stable nonlinear method" or SNLM) whereby reweighting of the eigenvectors is achieved implicitly, without actual calculation of the eigenvectors. This SNLM is compared with Capon's maximum likelihood method (MLM) in simulations of correlated noise, partially correlated signals, and phase errors, and is shown to provide good stability in the cases considered.     

High-resolution array processing using implicit eigenvectorweighting techniques

Many high-resolution bearing estimators require the explicit calculation of the eigenvectors and eigenvalues of the cross-spectral matrix of the sensor outputs. Once the eigenvectors have been calculated, various estimators can be derived by altering the eigenvalues to give a reweighting of the eigenvectors. These weighting functions are reminiscent of ideal filter responses in analog filter theory, where practical filters are designed by using polynomial approximations to the ideal desired response. The approximation theory developed for filter design is used to derive high-resolution bearing estimators that do not require explicit calculation of the eigenvectors     

Transient discrimination using a subspace method [acoustic array signal processing]

This paper describes a method using a subspace algorithm that can be used to discriminate between signals. Discrimination is necessary to ensure that the same transient from different data records is used in processing. The subspace discrimination algorithm was tested against synthetic transients and found to discriminate well at high signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs).     

A nearest neighbor algorithm for fast matched-field processing witha vertical line array

Selection of replica fields that are most like the data, i.e., the nearest neighbors (NNs) to the data, offers a way of reducing the computational search space in matched-field processing, thereby making larger physical search spaces or a larger number of frequencies practical. To enable selection of NNs a vector basis for the search space is required. The authors use the large eigenvectors of the covariance matrix for uncorrelated sources spread over the search region. This is not only a suitable vector basis of the search space, but also results in a dimensional reduction from the full set of eigenvectors, with a further computational saving. The replica vectors for the search region are partitioned by finding their projection on this vector basis. One can then select for matching only those replicas with similar squared projections on the vector basis. This selection process carries a modest cost in computing overhead, provided that the code, the partitioning, and the replica selection parameters are optimized. The detection performance and false alarm probability for the Bartlett beamformer, with and without selection of the replicas, were estimated from simulations of noisy data received on a vertical line array at practical time-bandwidth products. An order of magnitude speedup was obtained     

Methods of array element localization for a towed underwateracoustic array

The location of the hydrophones on a towed underwater acoustic array as a function of time (array element localization) is needed for signal processing. Methods to perform this localization using least squares polynomial fitting to data from depth sensors, heading sensors, and sensors detecting a ping from a single source are discussed. Arc distance along the array is used as the independent parameter so that all solutions are constrained to be space curves. Examples of application to real data are presented, and techniques to discriminate against bad sensor data are discussed     

Digital processing considerations for extraction of ocean wave image spectra from raw synthetic aperture radar data

The digital processing requirements of several algorithms for extracting the spectrum of a detected synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image from the raw SAR data are described and compared. The most efficient algorithms for image spectrum extraction from raw SAR data appear to be those containing an intermediate image formation step. It is shown that a recently developed compact formulation of the image spectrum in terms of the raw data is computationally inefficient when evaluated directly, in comparison with the classical method where matched-filter image formation is an intermediate result. It is also shown that a proposed indirect procedure for digitally implementing the same compact formulation is somewhat more efficient than the classical matched-filtering approach. However, this indirect procedure includes the image formation process as part of the total algorithm. Indeed, the computational savings afforded by the indirect implementation are identical to those obtained in SAR image formation processing when the matched-filtering algorithm is replaced by the well-known "dechirp-Fourier transform" technique. Furthermore, corrections to account for slant-to-ground range conversion, spherical earth, etc., are often best implemented in the image domain, making intermediate image formation a valuable processing feature.     

Hydrodynamic coefficients for a vertical tube in an array

In a wave tank test with vertical tube array arranged transverse to the wave direction, forces on two 1 ft instrumented sections as well as on the tubes are measured. The effect of the spacing of the tubes upon the forces on the tubes are investigated. The mass and drag coefficients are determined from the forces on the instrumented sections of the tubes. They are presented as functions of the Keulegan-Carpenter number (or the period parameter) and the tube spacing. The total forces on the tubes are computed based on the mean values of the hydrodynamic coefficients. The correlation between these calculated values and the measured forces is found to be good.     

Deep structure of the US East Coast passive margin from large aperture seismic experiments (LASE)

Multiple ship multichannel seismic measurements in the Baltimore Canyon Trough reveal a deep crustal layer with p-wave velocity of 7.2 km s⁻¹. It apparently continues into oceanic layer 3 from beneath the inner shelf where it presumably underlies the continental basement. The layer may be plutonically solidified mantle melt. Its continuity from continental shelf to deep ocean basin may reflect a continuous progression between plutonic emplacement into the continental crust and plutonic construction of the lower oceanic crust. The deep magmatic expression of late stage continental rifting and early seafloor spreading may be very similar and blur the structural expression of the continent-ocean boundary.     

Vertical synthetic aperture sonar for ocean acoustic tomography

This paper presents the result of a first attempt to achieve a vertical synthetic aperture in the ocean for SOFAR multipath identification. The experiment was conducted during the deployment of a tomographic array in the Mediterranean Sea. Drifting the hydrophone up or down from a ship while listening to the transmitted signal created a powerful synthetic aperture at 400 Hz. Wide-band phase-coded signals, typically used in ocean tomography, were found suitable for this application. The displacement length was 100 m and the hydrophone velocity 1 m/s. The obtained resolution of 1° enabled all the rays in the tested middle range configuration to be resolved and identified. Most of them could not have been resolved with a static hydrophone. Several Doppler processing methods are presented. The narrowband approximation leading to fast algorithms is discussed. Phase time series of individual paths obtained with an array-like wave separation method show that the phase coherence of the different multipaths is nearly perfect. An angle/velocity calibration method and a first rough inversion are finally presented     

CRB approximations for a horizontal array observing a narrow-bandtarget with partial coherence

It is demonstrated that simple approximations are available for the Cramer-Rao lower bounds on estimates of range, bearing and frequency using a moving line array. The results are extended to include the effects of the partial coherence of the source     

A deconvolution algorithm for broadband synthetic aperture dataprocessing

Conventional processing of synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) data is equivalent to a two-dimensional matched filter operation. In principle, two-dimensional deconvolution improves the resolution of the processed image. However, its direct implementation is generally impractical, due to numerical problems. The paper discusses the development of iterative algorithms that efficiently perform the deconvolution of broadband synthetic aperture data and gives examples of their application. It is concluded that, in many cases, the proposed approach is preferable to more classical solutions     

Detection of buried targets using a synthetic aperture sonar

This paper presents observations of buried target detections made using a 20-kHz synthetic aperture sonar. At grazing angles below the critical angle, surprisingly high signal-to-noise detections were made of cylindrical targets buried at depths of 15 and 50 cm. During a separate set of measurements, buried spheres were clearly seen at steep grazing angles, but were generally not seen below the critical angle. Since scattering from wave-generated sand ripples may contribute to detections at grazing angles below critical angle, the information available on the ripple fields is discussed and used in acoustic backscatter simulations for the buried spheres. Lack of information on the ripple height precludes a definitive explanation for the absence of buried sphere detections at subcritical grazing angles.     

适用于U型阵多波束系统的高分辨底检测算法

在多波束回声声纳系统中,高分辨处理算法例如MUSIC、ESPRIT,被广泛应用于海底地形的测绘。在应用高分辨算法时,一条均匀线阵是必要条件。然而,由于系统覆盖范围/分辨率的需求以及安装空间的限制,在多波束系统中经常会采用特殊形状的接收阵列,这使得高分辨算法无法直接应用。同时回波信号的短时平稳特性使得难以估计出协方差矩阵,这也增加了高分辨算法在多波束系统中的应用难度。本文首先介绍一种基于多角度子阵波束形成的ESPRIT算法,该算法能降低高分辨算法对信噪比、样本点数和计算能力的要求。仿真表明此算法能提供更好的分辨力。接着提出一种将基于多角度子阵波束形成的ESPRIT算法与虚拟阵列变换相结合的高分辨底检测算法,并针对高分辨底检测算法在U型阵上的应用进行了探讨。计算机仿真和试验数据处理结果验证了文章所提高分辨底检测算法的有效性。     

A new passive synthetic aperture technique for towed arrays

An algorithm that synthesizes apertures in the beam domain using FFT transformations and performs coherent processing of subaperture signals at successive time intervals is presented. Experimental tests of the algorithm show that for ocean environments with spatial coherence longer than the synthetic aperture length and for signals with temporal coherence longer than the required acquisition time, a synthetic array gain is achieved which roughly corresponds to the length of an equivalent fully populated array. In the experiments, transducer generated CW with phase stability and pseudorandom signals were used. Limitations on the spatial and temporal coherence were introduced only by the medium, the temporal coherence of the pseudorandom signal, and the shape and stability of the line array used