Underwater Acoustic Imaging with a Novel Array and High Resolution Processing

摘要

Considering underwater vehicles automatic target recognition (ATR), this paper presented an underwater acoustic imaging scheme with high resolutions of both azimuth and range. A novel sparse acoustic array, which consisted of two uniform arrays with the same equivalent acoustic center but respectively with different aperture and element spacing, were proposed to greatly decrease array elements and reduce hardware complexity. Simultaneously, the beamforming processing algorithm corresponding with the array was put forward to improve array directivity and beam performance based on array signal processing. Then, underwater acoustic imaging was developed with preformed dense narrow beams and each beam high range resolution processing of wideband signal correlation. Target information of all narrow beams at each range unit constituted azimuth and range distribution image of the whole target. Numerous computer simulations and experiments were carried out to demonstrate the theoretical conclusions. All the results of the simulations and experiments indicated that underwater acoustic imaging with the novel sparse array and high resolution processing was effective and feasible. Consequently, it provided a reference to engineering applications.