一种面向声纳群目标检测应用的盲波束形成改进算法

随着水下自主航行器（UUV）及其声纳检测系统的智能化水平的提高，多UUV协同工作成为重要的研究方向，阵列信号处理中的盲波束形成理论可用于处理该类问题。Coviello提出了一种便于实时应用的盲波束形成算法，但其算法适用面窄，本文通过阵元对理论对其算法加以改进，以适应UUV间的位置误差，从而改善UUV群对目标方位的被动估计能力。仿真实验显示，改进算法在保持Coviello算法良好性能的前提下具有更广阔的适用性。     

MASS-RAB: Robust adaptive beamforming for general-rank signal models via matched spatial spectrum processing

The wavefront of acoustic signal suffers from fast fluctuation after a long distance propagation in a random and inhomogeneous ocean channel, which makes the rank of the covariance matrix for the desired signal (signal of interest) remarkably higher than one. Consequently, the assumption of rank-one point signal model for existing adaptive beamforming algorithms is no longer suitable. In this paper, a matched spatial spectrum processing based robust adaptive beamforming (MASS-RAB) algorithm is presented for general-rank signal models. First, the interference-plus-noise covariance matrix and the desired signal covariance matrix are reconstructed using the matched spatial spectrum processing method. Second, the weight vector is directly calculated using these reconstructed covariance matrices for the minimum variance distortionless response (MVDR) algorithm, which is developed for the general-rank signal models. Due to covariance matrix reconstruction, the MASS-RAB algorithm is more robust than those methods relying on the sample covariance matrix. The cases of the rank-one point signal model and the full-rank non-point signal model are considered by several numerical examples. Experimental results have demonstrated the superiority of the proposed MASS-RAB method.     

一种加权稀疏约束稳健Capon波束形成方法

为了克服标准Capon波束形成器旁瓣级高以及存在角度失配时性能急剧下降等缺点, 在稀疏约束Capon波束形成器的基础上, 提出了一种加权稀疏约束Capon波束形成器. 该方法利用波束响应的稀疏分布特性, 在标准Capon波束形成优化模型中加入旁瓣区域波束响应稀疏约束(l₁ 范数约束), 使旁瓣区域波束响应向量中非零元素的个数最小化; 通过阵列采样数据协方差矩阵特征分解得到信号子空间及噪声子空间, 利用信号子空间与噪声子空间的正交特性, 构造加权矩阵对稀疏约束进行加权, 使得稀疏重构时波束响应向量中不同角度对应的元素得到不同程度的约束. 该方法有效地抑制了Capon波束形成器的高旁瓣级, 加深了干扰方位零陷, 提高了阵列输出信干噪比. 由于稀疏约束, 波束响应向主瓣集中, 期望信号方向附近的波束响应都较大, 从而也提高了阵列抗导向矢量角度失配的能力. 数值仿真和水池实验验证了所提方法的有效性.     

海洋环境噪声场对称性分析及噪声消除方法

实际的海洋环境是非常复杂的,存在着海洋自噪声、舰船噪声、生物发声等,阵元接收到的噪声信号存在一定的相关性,此时基于传统阵列信号处理的目标方位估计方法的性能将变差,针对这一问题,提出了一种实部消除方法.首先从阵元接收环境噪声的物理机理出发,将圆环阵接收的噪声场分解为对称噪声场和非对称噪声场,并且研究发现对称噪声场只影响数据协方差矩阵的实部.然后通过消除协方差矩阵实部,达到消除对称噪声场的目的,提高信噪比,但是同时产生了虚假声源.针对虚假声源的问题,提出了基于优化算法重构协方差矩阵实部的方法,消除了虚假声源的影响.仿真分析与海试数据处理结果表明:该方法明显消除了对称噪声,提高了信噪比,改善了阵列信号处理算法的性能.实部消除方法易于实现,有一定的工程应用价值.     

基于半定规划和秩-1分解的稳健波束形成

针对标准Capon波束形成器在存在导向矢量失配时性能急剧下降问题, 提出了一种基于半定规划和秩-1分解的稳健波束形成算法. 该方法通过对实际导向矢量的估计提高自适应波束形成算法稳健性. 首先分别从干扰抑制和噪声抑制两个方面推导了新导向矢量应满足的约束条件, 并证明了利用矩阵滤波器构造约束条件的合理性; 构造了估计最优导向矢量的优化问题并将其转化为易于求解的松弛半定规划问题, 同时引入秩-1分解理论用于优化问题的求解. 仿真分析表明, 与目前较为常见的算法相比, 本文算法只需利用期望信号可能入射区间这一先验信息, 能获得更高输出信干噪比和功率估计精度. 关键词： 稳健自适应波束形成 半定规划 秩-1分解 导向矢量估计     

Combination of time reversal and synthetic aperture beamforming for active detection of small bottom objects in waveguide environments

To enhance detection of small targets, the combination of time reversal processing (TRP) and synthetic aperture beamforming (SABF) is investigated. With the spatial–temporal focusing, the potential application of TRP for active detection has been demonstrated [Kim S, Kuperman WA, Hodgkiss WS. Echo-to reverberation enhancement using a time reversal mirror. J Acoust Soc Am 2004;115(4):1525–31]. When a physical probe source (PS) replaced by a modeled source (MS), the “potential” is turned into being more practical. Similar to matched field processing, the robustness of TRP with MS needs to be considered. Meanwhile by the improvement of the extended towed array measurement (ETAM) algorithm of passive SABF, a segmented ETAM algorithm is discussed for its use in active sonar. With the echo-signal enhancement by time reversal transmission, the echo-to-reverberation ratio is further improved by SABF. Finally a matched filter is used to detect the target and the range of the target is estimated by the time delay referenced to the transmission time. The results of the waveguide tank experiment demonstrate that the TRP–SABF method can effectively detect and locate a bottom cylinder shell of 0.51 m long and 0.21 m in diameter.     

子空间方法用于宽容的自适应波束形成

由于浅海波导和接收阵本身存在大量的不确实性,使得接收到的阵数据产生严重的失真,而常见的自适应波束形成方法如MVDR对失配很敏感。为此,本文提出了一种宽容性的自适应子空间波束形成方法。考虑一个具有空间特征的信号位于已知的子空间,但在子空间中的具体位置未知,并将干扰建模为子空间干扰。首先对未知参量进行最大似然估计,代入似然比检测中得到广义似然比检测(GLRT),从而得到子空间波束形成器。通过对不同失配情况下仿真以及实际海试数据处理验证了子空间波束形成器的性能,仿真和实验数据处理结果表明,子空间波束形成器比MVDR更宽容,比较明显提高检测和估计性能。     

Researches on the measurement of distribution image of radiated noise using focused beamforming

A method using focused beamforming to measure the distribution image （underwater image） of submarine and surface ship＇s noise sources is presented. Level linear array can measure the target image on water level, but the multi-path interference of underwater acoustic channel may affect the quality of it. Virtual time reversal mirror and virtual array can both solve the problem very well; they make the image with high resolution.     

Joint User Scheduling,Relay Selection,and Power Allocation for Multi-Antenna Opportunistic Beamforming Systems

Opportunistic beamforming (OBF) is a potential technique in the fifth generation (5G) and beyond 5G (B5G) that can boost the performance of communication systems and encourage high user quality of service (QoS) through multi-user selection gain. However, the achievable rate tends to be saturated with the increased number of users, when the number of users is large. To further improve the achievable rate, we proposed a multi-antenna opportunistic beamforming-based relay (MOBR) system, which can achieve both multi-user and multi-relay selection gains. Then, an optimization problem is formulated to maximize the achievable rate. Nevertheless, the optimization problem is a non-deterministic polynomial (NP)-hard problem, and it is difficult to obtain an optimal solution. In order to solve the proposed optimization problem, we divide it into two suboptimal issues and apply a joint iterative algorithm to consider both the suboptimal issues. Our simulation results indicate that the proposed system achieved a higher achievable rate than the conventional OBF systems and outperformed other beamforming schemes with low feedback information.     

Ultrasound phase rotation beamforming on multi-core DSP

Phase rotation beamforming (PRBF) is a commonly-used digital receive beamforming technique. However, due to its high computational requirement, it has traditionally been supported by hardwired architectures, e.g., application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) or more recently field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). In this study, we investigated the feasibility of supporting software-based PRBF on a multi-core DSP. To alleviate the high computing requirement, the analog front-end (AFE) chips integrating quadrature demodulation in addition to analog-to-digital conversion were defined and used. With these new AFE chips, only delay alignment and phase rotation need to be performed by DSP, substantially reducing the computational load. We implemented the delay alignment and phase rotation modules on a Texas Instruments C6678 DSP with 8 cores. We found it takes 200 μs to beamform 2048 samples from 64 channels using 2 cores. With 4 cores, 20 million samples can be beamformed in one second. Therefore, ADC frequencies up to 40 MHz with 2:1 decimation in AFE chips or up to 20 MHz with no decimation can be supported as long as the ADC-to-DSP I/O requirement can be met. The remaining 4 cores can work on back-end processing tasks and applications, e.g., color Doppler or ultrasound elastography. One DSP being able to handle both beamforming and back-end processing could lead to low-power and low-cost ultrasound machines, benefiting ultrasound imaging in general, particularly portable ultrasound machines.