High resolution obstacle avoidance and bottom mapping array processing technique

• US 20050007881A1
• Filed: 06/08/2004
• Published: 01/13/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 06/09/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Farsounder, Inc.
• Original Assignee: Farsounder, Inc.
• Inventors: Miller, James Henry, Zimmerman, Matthew Jason
• Granted Patent: US 7,173,879 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 367/103
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/42 Simultaneous measurement of distance and other co-ordinates indirect measurement G01S15/46
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 15/93 for anti-collision purposes
• CPC Class Codes: G01S 7/527 Extracting wanted echo signals Doppler systems G01S15/50
• CPC Class Codes: G01V 1/3808 Seismic data acquisition, e.g. survey design

Abstract

A processing technique to apply high resolution, non-Fourier based beamformers to practical active sonar system implementations.

Claims

1. A processing technique for an active phased array receiver consisting:

a non-Fourier based beamformer where the number of targets to search for is based on the values attained from an Adaptive Target Population Estimator processing technique where the values of the eigenvalues and the slope of successive eigenvalues are used to determine the number of target to be searched for by the beamformer;

a correlation based processing techniques to extract valid targets from the beamformed data set.

2. A sonar system comprising:

a broad beam transmitter;

a phased array receiver;

receive electronics including analog signal conditioning electronics and analog to digital converter electronics;

a processor where said processor utilizes a non-Fourier based beamformer and a correlation based processing techniques to extract valid targets from the beamformed data set as in claim 1.

3. A sonar system as in claim 2 where the elements in the array are spaced greater than ½

wavelength in at least one dimension.

4. A sonar system as in claim 2 where the receive array is planar.

5. A sonar system as in claim 2 where the receive array is conformal.

6. A sonar system as in claim 2 where the duration of a single transmit signal is broken into multiple segments and processed independently where each of said duration segments is used as an independent snapshot of the target signal.

7. A sonar system as in claim 2 where the receive electronics utilize bandpass sampling techniques and the processor is configured to operate on bandpass sampled data.

8. A sonar system as in claim 3 where the receive electronics utilize bandpass sampling techniques and the processor is configured to operate on bandpass sampled data.

9. A sonar system as in claim 4 where the receive electronics utilize bandpass sampling techniques and the processor is configured to operate on bandpass sampled data.

10. A sonar system as in claim 5 where the receive electronics utilize bandpass sampling techniques and the processor is configured to operate on bandpass sampled data.

11. A sonar system as in claim 6 where the receive electronics utilize bandpass sampling techniques and the processor is configured to operate on bandpass sampled data.